On Thursday (April 20), during an appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” Vice President Kamala Harris called for an assault weapons ban while reaffirming her support for the Second Amendment.
Mourning the victims of gun violence, Harris condemned the “weapons of war” on the streets and called for a new ban on assault weapons to prevent mass shootings.
The Vice President explained the suggestion it’s either being pro-Second Amendment or wanting “reasonable gun safety laws” was false.
Instead, she insisted that assault-style weapons are “weapons of war” that don’t belong on American streets; she added that the country needs “an assault weapons ban,” calling such legislation “reasonable.”
Harris went on to condemn the U.S. Congress, describing them as “pitiful” for failing to pass “reasonable gun safety laws” that would stand up to the gun lobby.
She decried Congress’s lack of courage, saying, noting lawmakers couldn’t “stand up to the gun lobby… [and] NRA, and share their support for the Second Amendment while fighting for “reasonable gun safety laws.”
She then called on Congress to “have some courage.”
President Biden has been calling for a federal ban comparable to the 1994 “assault weapons and high-capacity magazines” ban.
Harris also called for a ban on assault weapons after the Uvalde school shooting in May 2022.
Last year May, Harris told reporters that Congress wasn’t “sitting around waiting to figure out” what a solution would look like, noting that Congress already knows “what works,” adding that was an “assault weapons ban.”
While the Democratic Party was largely united in calling for an assault weapons ban, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Director Steve Dettelbach was criticized for not defining the term “assault weapon.”
