While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is blocking wildly popular gun legislation like universal background checks and red flag laws, Democrats are letting voters know what else they would do if McConnell and Donald Trump weren’t in the way. An assault weapons ban is a key part of that, having racked up nearly 200 cosponsors in the House.
A few Democrats from more conservative districts are leery of the law, but a wide swath of Democrats support it strongly, including Reps. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Jason Crow of Colorado, both of whom are military veterans who flipped Republican districts in 2018. “We know the purpose of a gun that can fire hundreds of rounds in minutes. It’s not for hunting or for civilian self-defense. It’s for warfare,” they wrote in a USA Today op-ed.
Former President Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban that was law from 1994 to 2004, before Republicans let it lapse. It was effective, and Clinton has called for it to be reinstated. Former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the more centrist candidates in the Democratic primary, likewise supports it, writing that “we will see only more and deadlier shootings if we continue to dodge the core issue of unregulated assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in our communities.”
But of course an assault weapons ban is a dream for the future as long as McConnell is in a position to block Senate votes on even the most modest of gun reforms. Sherrill and Crow addressed that, too, writing that “If the Senate refuses to act, then we must vote them out. Let’s show Americans what leadership really looks like. Our children are watching, and learning to see what we do next.”
Change will only come with a Democratic Senate. Can you give $1 to win each of these seven key states and retake the Senate? And while you’re at it, let’s expand the Democratic House majority. Can you give $1 to flip these winnable districts?
