The Parkland, Florida, shooting raised awareness and started a conversation about how to curtail gun violence in our country. This terrible incident gave students across our nation a platform to become impassioned gun control advocates and promote common-sense changes to our laws – such as a ban on assault rifles – to prevent mass shooting tragedies from ever happening again. Since then, we’ve heard from political opponents and the NRA that banning assault rifles is a gateway to taking away our second amendment rights. There is nothing further from the truth.
Sen. Bobby Joe Champion
Since 2007, at least 173 people have been killed in mass shootings in the United States involving AR-15s, according to a New York Times analysis. The grim list of assault weapons involved in crimes includes Newtown, Connecticut; Las Vegas; San Bernardino, California; and now Parkland, Florida.
Let’s be clear: Assault rifles are not used for hunting. Assault rifles are not used for protection. Assault rifles are designed for the military to kill and to kill as many people as possible quickly and efficiently. There is no reason for people to have an assault rifle that can fire off rounds quickly. They cause more harm than good and are far from a necessity. There are other ways for people to hunt or defend themselves without assault weapons.
A ban on assault rifles is not in any way, shape or form an attack on the Second Amendment. We banned assault weapons for 10 years from 1994 through 2004 without any – I repeat any – infringements on Second Amendment rights. The NRA, gun sellers and manufacturers of guns want to sell more weapons. They exploit people’s fears and tell them if we ban automatic weapons, we’ll soon be banning all guns including hunting rifles and handguns. Nothing
