Home passes assault weapons ban

The Home voted Friday to ban semiautomatic assault weapons, as negotiations over police funding laws proceed. 

Nearly all Republicans voted towards the invoice, which handed 217-213, in keeping with the Related Press. And the invoice now faces steep odds within the Senate, the place Democrats had been unable to safe sufficient help for a ban on such weapons in earlier gun management negotiations.

The laws would ban the sale, manufacture, switch, or possession of semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding gadgets, though a few of these firearms can be allowed beneath grandfathering. The invoice’s definition of semiautomatic assault weapons consists of rifles, shotguns, and pistols which are semiautomatic and might settle for a removable ammunition feeding system and that possess no less than one different military-type function that may make the firearm “particularly lethal,” as recognized in experiences issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms beneath the Clinton and Bush administrations.

The laws permits the possession of assault weapons by those that already personal the firearm on the date the invoice would grow to be legislation. It will additionally enable the switch or sale of legally owned assault weapons with a background examine. 

The invoice would make it “illegal for an individual to import, promote, manufacture, switch, or possess, in or affecting interstate or overseas commerce, a semiautomatic assault weapon.” 

Democrats hope that such a ban will assist forestall some future mass shootings. However not all Democrats are on board. Centrist Democratic Reps. Kurt Schrader, Henry Cuellar and Jared Golden are all on file as opposing such a ban. 

The ban would reinstate an identical assault-style weapons ban that was enacted in 1994 and expired in 2004. That invoice banned sure assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. 

President Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the 1994 ban handed, has lengthy known as for it to as soon as once more be legislation. 

“Assault weapons must be banned,” the president stated earlier this month when he signed a bipartisan gun management invoice into legislation. “I am decided to ban these weapons once more.”

Some Democrats had hoped to vote on each the assault weapons ban and on police funding laws Friday, the ultimate day the Home is in session earlier than the August recess, because the midterm elections strategy this fall. Progressives, who’re hoping for extra accountability measures to be connected to police funding, say they have not reached an settlement but. 

Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated they are going to revisit the general public security payments in August, when lawmakers are anticipated to briefly return to deal with different remaining laws, in keeping with the AP.

“Home Democrats are dedicated to constructing safer communities, in each nook of the nation,” Pelosi stated in a letter to the Democratic caucus Friday. “To that finish, our members have been engaged on a sturdy bundle of public security payments and have made immense progress in our discussions. Work continues on this important laws, and we plan to convey this laws to the ground — growing security with accountability.”

— CBS Information’ Rebecca Kaplan contributed to this report