It’s been three months since the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, and Congress has yet to pass a comprehensive gun control bill. But on Thursday, lawmakers moved one step closer when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve a ban on assault weapons.
Now that three major gun control measures–background checks, gun trafficking and the assault weapons ban–have been approved by the panel, the future of gun reform lies mostly in the hands of Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. In a statement Thursday, President Obama urged Congress to move quickly, saying that “each one of these proposals deserves a vote.”
Polling consistently shows that the public supports a variety of gun control measures: 83% of Americans support background checks, 56% support a ban on assault weapons, and 53% support a ban on high capacity magazines. But Republicans and some Senate Democrats aren’t letting this get in the way of their opposition to the proposals at hand and their allegiance to the NRA.
On Friday’s NOW with Alex Wagner, the panel discussed the future of gun control and the hurdles facing Congress on both sides of the aisle.
Allison MacDonald