Citing an outbreak of three California mass shootings that killed 19 people in a span of 44 hours, President Joe Biden on Tuesday renewed his call for a national ban on assault weapons. His response follows an extraordinarily high rate of mass killings in the U.S. over three of the past four months.
“Even as we await further details on these shootings, we know the scourge of gun violence across America requires stronger action,” Biden said in a statement. “I once again urge both chambers of Congress to act quickly and deliver this Assault Weapons Ban to my desk, and take action to keep American communities, schools, workplaces, and homes safe.”
James Alan Fox, a Northeastern criminology professor who has been studying mass killings for more than 40 years, says the president should be focused instead on a national ban on large capacity magazines—thereby limiting the number of bullets that can be fired without pausing to reload.
