Democrats are prepared to act after the recent mass shooting at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee, in which three children and three adults were killed.
The assailant in that attack, who was killed by police on the scene, had assault rifles among the weapons they’d assembled, and Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), besides other figures like President Joe Biden himself, have once again turned to pushing for a renewed federal ban on assault rifles, as they’re known. “We need to ban assault weapons,” Schiff said Tuesday. “We need to hold gun manufacturers responsible. We need to limit high-capacity magazines. We need to raise the age limit to purchase guns. We need to act. And if Republicans won’t help, they need to get out of the way.”
The age limit for purchasing certain kinds of dangerous firearms is something Republicans themselves have sometimes addressed in their policy moves. After the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, the Republican leadership helming that state’s government raised the age required before purchasing long guns like those of the style of the infamous AR-15 repeatedly used in shootings. (It went up to 21.) Yet, Republicans still resist action, contravening not only what reality demands and many citizens want but their own occasional admissions about the kind of action necessary. On that specific front, some states have already implemented their own bans on assault weapons, but most of the country is still without such wide-reaching restrictions.
“House Republicans will continue to do nothing to stop school shootings. How do we know? They said it out loud,” Lieu added on Twitter. “If you help Democrats flip the House and expand the Senate, we will pass into law: universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons, and a ban on pistol braces.” The braces Lieu referenced are used to expand the capability of the utilized firearms to more closely approximate something like a sawed-off shotgun or a short-barreled rifle.
Predictably, Republicans have been generally resistant to new measures on gun control. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a high-ranking Republican among the Senate’s GOP members, called a discussion of changes to gun policy “premature,” saying: “Our thoughts are with the families, the victims, with the community. We are grateful for the quick rapid response of law enforcement, and I think with respect to any discussion of legislation, it’s premature. There’s an ongoing investigation. And I think we need to let the facts come out.”
We need to ban assault weapons.
We need to hold gun manufacturers responsible.
We need to limit high-capacity magazines.
We need to raise the age limit to purchase guns.
We need to act.
And if Republicans won’t help, they need to get out of the way.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 28, 2023
House Republicans will continue to do nothing to stop school shootings. How do we know? They said it out loud.
If you help Democrats flip the House and expand the Senate, we will pass into law: universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons, and a ban on pistol braces. https://t.co/vUNKIwkLAf
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 28, 2023
