Detroit Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib is calling for the federal government to reinstate a ban on assault weapons with high-capacity magazines.
President Joe Biden also called for that in a speech this week. He also proposed a variety of other gun control measures meant to curb the country’s rash of mass shootings.
An assault weapons ban would include the AR-15, the weapon of choice for shooters in many of the country’s largest and most recent mass shootings.
Tlaib, a Democrat, said the country is facing a gun violence crisis. She invoked a previous assault weapons ban in her argument for stricter controls now.
“This is a moment of urgency. It worked! Stop telling us it didn’t work when we banned AR-15s,” she said. “It worked! Get back to that.”
Congress passed an assault weapons ban in 1994. It expired ten years later. Researchers have conflicting views on whether it reduced overall gun crime, but mass shootings did increase after the ban lapsed.
Tlaib grew emotional as she spoke, choking up as she called the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, “monstrous.”
“People in their 70s, not being able to grocery shop, or children throwing their bodies over other children’s blood so they can say that they’re dead so they don’t get shot — like, how many times? I don’t know. But it’s tiring,” she said through tears.
