House passes bill which would ban certain semi-automatic firearms

The House have passed a bill which will ban certain types of semi-automatic firearms. The bill, which was passed 217-213, came in response to recent mass shootings.

All but two Republicans, Chris Jacobs (R-NY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (D-PA), voted against the bill. An earlier bill with the same terms was put in place in 1994 but was allowed to expire a decade later. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that the earlier bill had “saved lives.”

A statement by the Biden administration said “When the ban expired in 2004, mass shootings triple.” President Joe Biden praised the House vote, by saying, “The majority of the American people agree with this common sense action.” Biden then pressed the Senate to “move quickly to get this bill to my desk.”

Republican have branded the bill “an election year strategy” by the Democrats. “It’s a gun grab, pure and simple,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA). Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) concurred: “An armed America is a safe and free America.”

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) hit back at these claims, saying that the aim of the bill is not to strip Americans of their 2nd Amendment Rights, but for children “to not get shot in school.”

Two Ohio lawmakers had a heated debate about the bill. “Your freedom stops where mine begins, and that of my constituents begins,” Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur told Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. “Schools, shopping malls, grocery stores, Independence Day parades shouldn’t be scenes of mass carnage and bloodshed.”

Jordan extended an invitation to Kaptur to debate him on the 2nd Amendment. Jordon said that the majority of his constituents would “probably agree with me and agree with the United States Constitution.”

Jason Ouimet, who is the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, made a statement after the vote saying that “barely a month after” the Supreme Court expanded gun rights “gun control advocates in Congress are spearheading an assault upon the freedoms and civil liberties of law-abiding Americans.”

Ouimet went onto say that the bill will outlaw many firearms, which is “in blatant opposition to the Supreme Court’s rulings” that have established gun ownership as an individual right.