President Obama supports assault weapons ban

by NW Spotlight

The Hill reported on Tuesday that in the wake of last week’s mass shooting in Connecticut, “President Obama will ‘actively support’ efforts by Democrats to reinstate a federal ban on assault weapons next year.” 27 people were killed in the Connecticut tragedy, including 20 children.

Connecticut has had an assault weapon ban since 1993, that bans 67 semiautomatic assault weapons by brand name. The state’s assault weapon ban was upheld in 1995 by the Connecticut Supreme Court, was one of seven states’ bans to outlast the expiration of the national assault weapon ban in 2004, and was not affected by the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that rejected laws banning handguns.

The federal ban that expired in 2004 outlawed 18 specific models of military-style assault weapons.

A Hartford, Connecticut, newspaper reported that the rifle used by the killer in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings was not illegal under the state’s assault weapon ban, and by law, it was not even an assault weapon.

A 2012 study by the anti-gun organization, Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, ranked Connecticut as having the 4th strictest gun laws in the nation, for “having enacted some of the strongest gun violence prevention laws.”