President Joe Biden is again calling for gun safety legislation in the wake of several mass shootings.
Biden urged both chambers of Congress to act quickly to deliver a bill banning assault weapons to his desk. The United States has seen 39 mass shootings in the first three weeks of 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced an Assault Weapons and High-Capacity Magazine Ban in the Senate on Monday, along with legislation that would raise the purchasing age to 21.
“The constant stream of mass shootings have one common thread: they almost all involve assault weapons,” Feinstein said. “It’s time we stand up to the gun lobby and remove these weapons of war from our streets, or at the very least keep them out of the hands of young people.”
Biden supported the measures Feinstein introduced, noting a 1994 assault weapons ban he helped pass which aimed to reduce the number of mass shootings.
“In the 10 years that the Assault Weapons Ban was on the books, mass shootings went down,” Biden said in a statement. “After Republicans let the law expire in 2004 and those weapons were allowed to be sold again, mass shootings tripled.”
“Communities across America have been struck by tragedy after tragedy, including mass shootings from Colorado Springs to Monterey Park and daily acts of gun violence that do not make national headlines,” he said. “There can be no greater responsibility than to do all we can to ensure the safety of our children, our communities, and our nation.”
But, in the currently divided Congress, it is unlikely an assault weapons ban will pass.
Negotiators insist they are making progress, but a hoped-for framework did not emerge. The talks come as Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner in 2024, delivered alarming anti-immigrant remarks about “blood” purity over the weekend, echoing Nazi slogans of World War II at a political rally.
The Supreme Court decided to leave in place a ban on semi-automatic weapons in the state of Illinois.
The Senate passed a bill giving retroactive pay increases to those service members who may have been affected by the hold on military promotions caused by Senator Tommy Tuberville.
Jurors are expected to resume deliberations this morning in a case that centers on how much Donald Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani must pay in his damages defamation trial.
President Biden said Israel needs to be more careful when it comes to civilian deaths in its war with Hamas as the next phase of the war is weeks away.
The White House has unveiled a list of 48 drugs that drugmakers will have to pay rebates to the federal government on due to raising their prices higher than the cost of inflation during this year.
The European Council announced it will open negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova to join the group.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said former President Trump's policies toward China have left the nation "more vulnerable" and more isolated in the global economy.
A federal grand jury in Montana has indicted two men accused of killing about 3,600 birds, including bald eagles and golden eagles, and selling them on the black market.
House Republicans unanimously voted to advance an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
