US President Joe Biden has welcomed the passing of a ban on semi-automatic weapons in the House of Representatives. The majority of Americans agree with this common sense measure, the President said. He urged the Senate to act quickly and pass the proposal as well. The House of Representatives voted by a majority on Friday to reintroduce the ban.
Semi-automatic weapons were banned in the United States beginning in 1994. However, Congress eased restrictions on the manufacture and sale of these guns a decade later because there was not enough political support to confront the powerful gun lobby and reinstate the ban. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, pushed for the bill to pass, saying the ban at the time saved lives.
However, the bill is likely to fail in the Senate, where Democrats and Republicans each hold half the seats. Republicans reject the bill, which they describe as the Democratic campaign strategy. Almost all Republicans voted against the bill in the House of Representatives, which passed by a vote of 217 to 213.
As a Senator in 1994, Biden was instrumental in pushing through the first ban on semi-automatic weapons. The government said the number of mass shootings had decreased during the ten years of the ban. When the ban expired in 2004, the numbers tripled.
