NPR

Biden Wants New Ban On Assault-Style Weapons. What Lessons Were Learned From The '90s?

Advocates face steep odds getting a new ban through Congress. If they can succeed, they hope to avoid a repeat of past mistakes that left the original law open to loopholes.
President Biden looks on after speaking during an event about gun violence prevention in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 8.

When an assailant stormed a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., last month and fatally shot 10 people, the suspected weapon of choice — a Ruger AR-556 pistol — captured immediate attention. Not for what it technically was — a pistol — but for what it more closely resembled — an assault-style rifle.

The legality and lethality of semi-automatic "assault-style weapons" has been a topic of debate before. But in the wake of the mass shooting in Boulder, calls are once again growing for a federal ban on these guns, including from President Biden. While unveiling a series of around gun violence prevention at the White House on Thursday, the president said the nation should reinstate a version of the federal assault weapons ban he helped to pass as a senator in

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