Biden Renews Call For Sweeping ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he had exhausted all avenues under executive authority to stop mass shootings, and now it is up to Congress to act.

The president called on legislators to step in as he has gone to “the full extent” he is capable of. His comments came in the wake of Monday’s horrific mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school that claimed six lives, including three nine-year-olds.

Speaking to reporters as he departed Washington D.C. for North Carolina, Biden once again called for the reinstatement of a federal ban on “assault weapons” that he helped spearhead in 1994. 

This ban targeted “semiautomatic assault weapons” and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.” The president has on multiple occasions credited the action with lowering mass shootings. 

Critics argued this was not the case, and support waned. In 2004 the controversial ban was allowed to expire at the end of its ten-year term. 

A suspect identified as 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale is alleged to have entered Nashville’s Covenant School on Monday armed with three weapons. The biological female identified as transgender and was killed by responding officers.

Police searched her home and reported they recovered a “manifesto.” She was a former student at the school and had several hand-drawn maps of her target in her possession. 

The school is a private Christian institution and is part of the local Presbyterian Church. It serves roughly 200 students up through sixth grade.

The quick leap to Second Amendment issues after a tragedy is nothing new for the Biden White House. The dust had not settled and motives were unclear, but calls came to limit constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre immediately targeted the GOP.

In the hours after the tragedy, Jean-Pierre asked, “How many more children have to be murdered before Republicans in Congress will step up and act to pass the Assault Weapons Ban?”

A timely and proper response came from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). He tweeted that it is in extremely poor taste to blame Republicans for a vicious assault by “a transgender killer who targeted a Christian school.”