When US President Joe Biden speaks about the “scourge” of gun violence, his go-to answer is to zero in on so-called assault weapons.
The US has heard it hundreds of times, including last week after shootings in Colorado and Virginia: The president wants to sign into law a ban on high-powered guns that have the capacity to kill many people very quickly.
“The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick. Just sick,” Biden said on Thursday. “I’m going to try to get rid of assault weapons.”
Photo: REUTERS
After a mass killing at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs last week, he asked in a statement: “When will we decide we’ve had enough?”
“We need to enact an assault weapons ban to get weapons of war off America’s streets,” he added.
When Biden and US lawmakers talk about “assault weapons,” they are using an inexact term to describe a group of high-powered guns or semi-automatic long rifles, such as an AR-15, that can fire 30 rounds fast without reloading.
Photo: REUTERS
By comparison, New York Police Department officers carry a handgun that shoots about half that much.
A weapons ban is far off in a closely divided US Congress.
However, Biden and Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly emboldened in pushing for stricter gun controls — and doing so with no clear electoral consequences.
The Democratic-led US House of Representatives in July passed legislation to revive a 1990s-era ban on “assault weapons,” with Biden’s vocal support. The president also pushed a ban nearly everywhere he campaigned this year.
Still, in the midterm elections this month, Democrats kept control of the US Senate and Republicans were only able to claim the slimmest House majority in two decades.
The tough talk follows passage of a landmark bipartisan bill on gun laws in June, and it reflects steady progress that gun control advocates have been making in the past few years.
“I think the American public has been waiting for this message,” said US Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who has been the Senate’s leading advocate for stronger gun control since the massacre of 20 children at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
“There has been a thirst from voters, especially swing voters, young voters, parents, to hear candidates talk about gun violence, and I think Democrats are finally sort of catching up with where the public has been,” he said.
However, just about half of US voters want to see nationwide gun policy made more strict, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide conducted for The Associated Press by the University of Chicago.
About three in 10 want gun policy kept as is, while only 14 percent prefer looser gun laws, the survey showed.
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