Tennessee Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen called for a ban on “assault weapons” during a Thursday congressional hearing on gun control.
“The Second Amendment, like the first, is not absolute,” Cohen said during the House Judiciary Committee hearing. “The First Amendment, you cannot defame people. You cannot go into a theater and holler fire.”
Cohen’s remarks came in the wake of a deadly mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, at Robb Elementary School that killed 19 students and two teachers.
“There are limits to the Second Amendment,” Cohen said. “Assault weapons are one of those limits we had for 10 years and during that time we had less mass killings in this country, and we should have it again.”
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The “Protect Our Kids Act,” introduced Tuesday, includes a proposal to raise the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21, bans on supposed “ghost guns,” a ban on bump stocks, and a ban on “large-capacity magazines.”
Gun-control legislation has stalled in the Senate due to the inability to garner the 60 votes necessary to break a filibuster, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reversing course on forcing a vote in the Senate last week.
“These guns fire in the same manner as any other semi-automatic firearm (one shot per trigger pull – no spray firing), they shoot the same ammunition as other guns of the same caliber and are no more powerful,” the National Shooting Sports Foundation said in a fact sheet. “What differentiates a so-called ‘assault weapon’ from other guns is cosmetic; for example, the type of stock on the gun, which makes the conventionally operating firearm look more like a military firearm.”
The 18-year-old shooter, Salvadore Ramos, legally bought two AR-15 rifles, the Daily Mail reported.
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