Prior to boarding Air Force Two on Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to reporters, calling for a ban on the vague category of “assault weapons.”
Harris opined to reporters that assault weapons are “designed with a specific purpose,” which is “to kill a lot of human beings quickly.”
“You know what an assault weapon is? You know how an assault weapon was designed?” Harris asked, before displaying that she doesn’t really know herself. “It was designed for a specific purpose, to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war with no place in a civil society.”
The United States has had such an “assault weapons” ban in place before.
In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton signed the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, which banned “the manufacture, transfer, or possession of a semiautomatic assault weapon.”
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The law ultimately lapsed in 2004, with then-Rep. Butch Otter (R-Idaho) arguing that the ban “provided only the illusion of reducing gun violence, but it did real damage to our liberties."
Studies analyzing the effectiveness of the law have largely come up empty, unable to credit the bill with reducing gun violence or even making a dent in “the use of assault rifles.”
Both Harris and President Joe Biden have demanded the return of the ban, or a similar one, in spite of these findings. As of Tuesday, Republicans, led by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), have begun negotiations with Senate Democrats, though it’s unclear whether any agreed-upon legislation will reach the filibuster-proof 60 votes required to pass in the Senate.
Related MRCTV Twitter Video:
Joe Biden continues to claims the Constitution and your Second Amendment rights are "not absolute." pic.twitter.com/8HHBqXZ74j
— MRCTV (@mrctv) May 31, 2022