Assault Weapon Ban: How VA Congressional Delegation Is Likely To Vote

VIRGINIA — Legislation that would ban certain semi-automatic weapons passed the House Judiciary Committee this month as Democrats continue a push to ban the type of weapon frequently used in a deadly wave of mass shootings.

The panel approved the legislation — House Bill 1808 — on a 25-18 party-line vote on Wednesday, July 20.

“As we have learned all too well in recent years, assault weapons — especially when combined with high-capacity magazines — are the weapon of choice for mass shootings,” New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said in his opening statement as the markup of the bill began last week. “Quite simply, there is no place for them on our streets.”

According to RollCall.com, House Democratic leaders pulled back on planned votes this week on a package of public safety bills that included police grant funding and an assault weapons ban, amid division within their caucus.

The bills were delayed after progressives objected to supporting a measure aimed at boosting funding for local police departments, Bloomberg reported.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said the House may still vote on the measures in August, when members are expected to convene to vote on a reconciliation bill, both media outlets said.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D), who represents Virginia's 7th congressional district, is a co-sponsor of the bill and has previously supported reinstating the ban on semi-automatic weapons ban that expired in 2004.

In early June, in the wake of the mass shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Spanberger wrote an op-ed published in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star in which she stated "it’s long past time to enact commonsense gun violence prevention legislation."

"I also support reinstating the ban on large-capacity magazines," Spanberger wrote in the op-ed. "The use of large-capacity magazines in shootings statistically leads to higher fatality rates and the unfortunate reality is that requiring would-be mass murderers to reload saves lives — allowing people to escape and law enforcement to intervene."

The other Virginia Democrats in Congress — Reps. Don Beyer (8th), Jennifer Wexton (10th), Gerry Connolly (11th), Elaine Luria (2nd), Bobby Scott (3rd) and Donald McEachin (4th) — also co-sponsored H.R. 1808.

The four Republican members of the House from Virginia are expected to vote against the bill.

Passage of the bill is important, according to Connolly, a long-time advocate for stronger gun control measures, because over the last two decades, more school-age children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active duty military combined.

"And, as we saw most recently in Uvalde, high-powered assault rifles like the AR-15 are particularly and devastatingly lethal when turned against small children," Connolly, who has served in Congress since 2009, said in a statement emailed to Patch. "We learned from the assault weapons ban of the 1990s that keeping these weapons of war off our streets can drastically reduce the frequency of mass shootings, saving countless lives and sparing a generation of American kids from the unbearable trauma of gun violence."

In a statement Friday, Wexton said "weapons of war have no place on our streets."

The U.S. has seen "too many tragic examples of assault weapons wreaking havoc across our country — they are the weapon of choice in nearly all of the deadliest mass shootings," Wexton stated. "I'm proud to support legislation to keep these dangerous weapons out of our communities."

Sponsored by Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 would prohibit the sale, manufacture, transfer or import of all semi-automatic weapons that can accept a detachable magazine or other feeding device with a capacity of 10 or more rounds, and have at least one of the following characteristics of a military-style weapon:

• a pistol grip;
• a forward grip;
• a folding, telescoping or detachable stock;
• a grenade launcher; a barrel shroud; or
• a threaded barrel.

The ban doesn’t apply to antique firearms, manually operated firearms and more than 2,000 specified models of hunting and sporting firearms.

It also doesn’t apply to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and other feeding devices legally possessed on the effective date of the assault weapons ban. A similar provision was included in the 1994 assault weapons ban.

Read the text of the 100-page assault weapons bill for more specifics.

‘Death Wish’ For Democrats?

Passage in the House is far from certain.

Some conservative Democrats, especially those in politically divided swing districts, are reluctant to vote for sweeping gun reform packages ahead of the November midterm elections, especially since an assault weapon ban has almost no chance of clearing the Senate.

An Associated Press/National Opinion Research Center poll in late May found 51 percent of Americans favor an assault weapons ban, while 32 percent are opposed to it.

Findings were similar in a Quinnipiac University poll in June. Importantly, the 50 percent of Americans supporting the federal assault weapons ban was the lowest level of support among registered voters for such a measure since Feb. 20, 2018, when 67 percent of Americans supported a ban.

At least two Democrats oppose the bill, according to The Associated Press. If every Republican opposes the legislation, Democrats can only lose four votes.

Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, whose district leans Republican, has said he doesn’t support “any version” of an assault weapons ban. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, the lone Democrat to get an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, also has said he won’t vote for the bill.

Several other Democrats are on the fence. Oregon Congressman Kurt Schrader, who was defeated in his primary, told Politico the legislation is the equivalent of a “death wish” for Democrats, noting “this is the bill that destroyed Democrats in ‘94.”

Others who are yet to decide are Democratic Reps. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Tom O’Halleran of Arizona.

“I want to see appropriate protection of the Second Amendment but at the same time protecting our public,” O’Halleran told Politico.

Republican Sacrifices Seat To Support Ban

Democrats could pick up two Republican votes, including that of New York Rep. Chris Jacobs, whose district includes Buffalo, where 10 Black people died in a grocery store shooting in May. Jacobs broke with his party in late May and said he would vote for a federal assault weapons ban — a decision that came at the expense of his political career.

“The last thing we need is an incredibly negative, half-truth-filled media attack funded by millions of dollars of special interest money coming into our community around this issue of guns and gun violence and gun control,” Jacobs said, according to footage of his announcement he would not seek re-election.

Days after 19 children and two teachers were killed in the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting on May 24, Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger told CNN he is open to an assault weapons ban.

“Look, I have opposed a ban, you know, fairly recently. I think I’m open to a ban now,” he said. “It’s going to depend on what it looks like because there’s a lot of nuances on what constitutes, you know, certain things.”

Kinzinger, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and one of two Republicans on the House Select Committee investigating it, also isn’t seeking re-election. He hasn’t said specifically if he will support H. B. 1808.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the House judiciary panel, said the legislation “will not reduce violent crime or reduce the likelihood of mass shootings.”

Democrats “are obsessed with attacking law-abiding Americans’ Second Amendment liberties,” he said. “For over 30 years, the Democrats have been running a propaganda campaign to make people believe that ‘assault weapons’ are a specific class of firearms that no one needs.”

Jordan said the ban leaves Americans at a disadvantage against “violent intruders in their home.”

“Prevented from defending themselves, their family, their property because of this legislation,” he said. “This legislation is dangerous, it doesn’t square with the Constitution, with the Second Amendment in any way, and it has failed in the past.”

Rep. Tom Massie, a Kentucky Republican, said Democrats are taking aim at “the most commonly sold sporting weapons.”

Cicilline, the bill’s sponsor, said the bill is narrowly focused on assault-style weapons, which aren’t the type most Americans buy or own, and also that Second Amendment protections aren’t absolute.

“Dangerous military weapons that were created to fight on the battlefield and slaughter enemies do not belong in the neighborhoods and schools and movie theaters where we live,” he said, according to the AP report.

1994 Assault Weapon Ban Effects

If approved, the ban would be the most substantive gun package since the original ban passed in 1994, led by then-Sen. Joe Biden.

Mass shootings were down in the decade the Clinton era semi-automatic weapons ban was in effect — even with an exemption that made it legal to own or resell assault weapons and high-capacity magazines manufactured before the law took effect in 1994. That and other loopholes made it easy for people to tap into an inventory of approximately 1.5 million assault weapons and 24 million high-capacity magazines that remained in private hands, according to a Washington Post analysis.

For his 2016 book, “Rampage Nation,” Louis Klaravas found that gun massacres — which he defined as six or more people shot and killed — decreased 37 percent and the number of people killed fell 43 percent in the 10-year period the ban was in effect, compared with the 10 years prior.

After the ban expired in 2004, gun massacres accelerated at a “staggering” rate, Klaravas told The Post. Incidents went up 183 percent, and gun massacre deaths went up 239 percent, he said.

Additional research from a group of injury epidemiologists and trauma surgeons found that after the assault weapons ban expired, mass shooting deaths increased to an average of 25 a year between 2004-2017, up from 5.3 a year during the tenure of the ban, and 7.2 a year in the years before the assault weapons ban.

Last month, Congress passed a bipartisan bill that, among other things, mandates background checks for gun buyers ages 18-21, allocates money for states to implement “red flag” laws” and closes the boyfriend loophole