During a House Oversight Committee hearing on the U.S. Secret Service on Monday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) urged lawmakers to “have the courage” to ban AR-15 rifles.
he pushed Law enforcement has reiterated efforts to mandate full enforcement of gun control laws and close the so-called “gun show loophole” that Democrats have pushed for decades, but the AR-15 used in the assassination attempt on President Trump was “legally purchased.” (When law enforcement says a gun purchase is “legal,” it means the buyer passed a background check and obtained the gun at a retail store.)
However, Raskin has called for further background checks in the wake of the assassination attempt.
Raskin also called for stricter restrictions on private gun sales, saying, “However, what happened in Butler shows that closing these loopholes will not keep ‘assault weapons’ out of the hands of potential assassins and mass murderers.”
“Under federal law and the majority of states, young people who are not yet old enough to legally purchase beer can legally purchase, possess and carry an AR-15 in public,” he added.
“The Butler shooter used his father’s AR-15,” Raskin said, though he did not mention that the shooter borrowed his father’s AR-15 under the pretext of going to the range for target practice.
He called on his fellow lawmakers to “have the courage and determination to pass a ban on AR-15s and other ‘assault weapons,'” and pointed to a 2019 poll five years ago to argue that the public supports a ban on AR-15s.
The AR-15 rifle is extremely popular among Americans. data According to statistics from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there are more than 28 million AR- and AK-style rifles in circulation.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the author and curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is a political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the Global Marketing Director for Lone Star Hunts. He was a visiting scholar at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and earned his PhD in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: FollowYou can subscribe to Downrange at breitbart.com/downrange . To contact me directly, please email awrhawkins@breitbart.com
