Once banned in the U.S., the high-powered firearms are now accused in many quarters as the weapon of choice among young men accountable for many of the most devastating mass shootings. Yet Congress enbaled the limitations first established in 1994 on the manufacture and sales of the weapons to expire a decade later, unable to muster the political back to counter the powerful gun lobby and reinstate the weapons ban.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the vote toward passage in the Democrat-run House, stating the earlier ban “saved lives.”
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The House legislation is shunned by Republicans, who dismissed it as an election-year strategy by Democrats. Nearly all Republicans voted against the bill, which passed 217-213. It will probably stall in the 50-50 Senate.
The vote on Friday night was largely yet not entirely along party lines.
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House Democrats Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Kurt Schrader of Oregon broke party lines to vote against the ban.
In the meantime, House Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Chris Jacobs of New York broke party lines to vote yes.
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It's notable that Jacobs' legislative district presented Buffalo, N.Y., where a white gunman has been charged with gunning down 10 Black people in a racist mass shooting at supermarket back in May.
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The bill arrives at a time of intensifying concerns regarding gun violence and shootings — the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, N.Y.; massacre of school children in Uvalde, Texas; and the July Fourth shootings of revelers in Highland Park, Ill.
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Voters appear to be taking such election-year votes seriously as Congress splits along party lines and lawmakers are forced to go on the record with their opinions. A recent vote to protect same-sex marriages from possible Supreme Court legal challenges won a surprising amount of bipartisan backing.
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President Joe Biden, who was instrumental in helping secure the first semi-automatic weapons ban as a senator in 1994, encouraged passage, promising to sign the bill if it reached his desk. In a statement before the vote, his administration announced, "we know an assault weapons and large-capacity magazine ban will save lives.”
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The Biden administration stated for 10 years while the ban was in place, mass shootings declined. “When the ban expired in 2004, mass shootings tripled,” the statement announced.
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