President Obama will follow up Thursday’s impassioned appeal for new gun control laws with a stop in Colorado where Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper has just signed a bill regulating firearm purchases. The bill places a limit of 15 bullets per clip of ammunition and requires universal background checks for gun sales, in addition gun purchasers are required to pay for the new measures. Read the full text of the bill here.
Joining Thomas Roberts on Saturday’s Weekends with Alex Witt, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., reacted to court documents released on Friday outlining new details of the grizzly Dec. 14 shooting. The 20-year old killer’s weapons stockpile highlighted the ease with which Americans can amass tools of destruction: “154 rounds fired in five minutes or less, because that shooter literally had a war arsenal in his home, more than 1,000 bullets…the lesson here is this very disturbed person had easy access to an arsenal of arms, ammunition, and weapons of war, and that has to stop,” Blumenthal said.
In Tuesday’s Washington Post, Ruth Marcus wrote an op-ed arguing that, “Requiring background checks for nearly all gun purchases is a change that is simultaneously more effective than banning assault weapons and more politically achievable.”
Nevertheless, Blumenthal affirmed that “there’s strong bipartisan support for a ban on illegal trafficking and straw purposes…[and] I am unwilling to concede that an assault weapons ban and a prohibition on high capacity magazines, which were integral to the Newtown massacre, have no chance of passing, in fact, we’re going to have a vote.”
While GOP senators Rubio, Cruz, Lee, Inhofe, and Paul have pledged to filibuster any assault weapons ban, Blumenthal is relying on “the silent of majority of Americans” to break the political deadlock surrounding this controversial issue.
Max Lockie