Vice President Joe Biden on Friday made an impassioned plea for a renewed assault weapons ban, saying it was just one step Congress could take to reduce the shootings that claim tens of thousands of lives around the U.S. each year.
"The President and I agree with you," Biden wrote in response to a popular White House petition calling for a ban on AR-15 rifles. "Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines should be banned from civilian ownership."
Biden's remarks come days after the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that claimed 49 lives and injured 53 more. The gunman was armed with a Sig Sauer MCX, a semiautomatic assault-style rifle and a cousin of the highly popular AR-15.
Biden went on to explain that a bill like the 1994 assault weapons ban, a controversial piece of legislation that expired in 2004, was just one step lawmakers could take to address gun violence. He encouraged Congress to work on strengthening background checks for gun purchases, preventing people on terrorist watch lists from buying firearms, tightening restrictions on domestic abusers, ending the freeze on gun violence research and increasing funding for law enforcement agencies to enforce existing gun laws.
"If taking commonsense steps to reduce gun violence had the potential to save even one life, it would be worth doing," Biden wrote. "But it has the potential to save far more than that."
Congress considered some of these provisions in 2013, prompted by the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and introduced other legislation last year, after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. None passed.
In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, many lawmakers and their constituents are again demanding action. Earlier this week, Democrats held a filibuster on the Senate floor to force a vote on gun control legislation. Senators are set to vote Monday on four dueling proposals to expand background checks and close the so-called terrorist loophole, all of which are widely expected to fail.
But while recent polling suggests that a majority of Americans once again support an assault weapons ban, some Democratic lawmakers have reportedly been hesitant to include such a measure in forthcoming gun violence legislation. And data suggests that these weapons account for just a small portion of overall gun violence.
The latest round of this debate takes place against a stark backdrop. In seven of the last eight high-profile mass shootings — as well as in earlier incidents in Newtown and Aurora, Colorado — perpetrators used assault-style rifles, which allowed them to fire off numerous devastating rounds in rapid succession.
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