As the U.S. begins to make progress against Covid-19, a different tragedy has returned to the headlines: mass shootings. On March 16, a gunman killed eight people at spas and massage parlors in the Atlanta area. Days later, another gunman killed 10 at a supermarket in Boulder, Colo.
With the tragedies have come renewed calls from Democratic leaders, including President Joe Biden, to authorize a new federal ban on assault weapons. “We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again,” Mr. Biden said the day after the Boulder shooting. “I got that done when I was a senator. It passed. It was law for the longest time, and it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again.”
But the history of the federal assault-weapons ban, passed in 1994 after an epic political battle on Capitol Hill, offers a cautionary tale about the difficulty of constructing an effective and politically acceptable ban…
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Authors: Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson
Source: Wall Street Journal