Handful of House GOP lawmakers open to assault rifle ban

A trickle of House GOP lawmakers have expressed support for or openness to banning assault-style rifles in recent years and in wake of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas last week.

As a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate discuss potential legislative action on gun violence in wake of the massacre, the House GOP members’ positions show a small yet notable contingent of Republicans in favor of some type of gun restrictions despite the party being largely averse to gun control measures.

Two Republicans, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Rep. Chris Jacobs (N.Y.), expressed openness to such restrictions in the aftermath of the Uvalde massacre, which left 19 elementary school children and two adult teachers dead.

??“I have opposed a ban fairly recently. I think I’m open to a ban now,” Kinzinger said on CNN Sunday when he was asked why private citizens need “weapons of war.”

Jacobs said in a press conference and during a Buffalo News interview last week that he would support such a ban, but not confiscation of such weapons.

“If an assault weapons ban bill came to the floor that would ban something like an AR-15, I would vote for it,” Jacobs said.

The Assault Weapons Ban of 2021, which has not received a vote in the current Congress, would ban 205 weapons by name; weapons that can utilize a magazine that is not fixed ammunition and also have any “military characteristics” like a pistol grip, telescoping stock, or threaded barrel; and magazines and ammunition feeding devices that can hold more than 10 rounds. LINK