Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a leading advocate for gun control in the Senate, has doubted whether it would be possible for an assault weapons ban to be enacted again, despite the push by President Biden for the upper chamber to pass such a bill.
During the lame-duck session of Congress, Biden noted that he would be attempting to “get rid of assault weapons”. This push has also been driven by a large number of mass shootings in the past year. However, in order for such a bill or proposal to pass through Congress, it would need to have the support of 10 Republican Senators in order to break the legislative filibuster. This is assuming that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is able to convince all 50 Democrats to vote in support of this legislation.
When CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Dana Bash asked Murphy whether he thought the proposal would be able to win the 60 votes it required. Murphy replied that he doubted that would happen but that does not mean that they won’t try to get the number as close to 60 as possible. He added that even if they were unsuccessful this year, then they would try again next year, with hopefully one additional senator, and try to pass the proposal then.
In July the House passed a bill that would ban assault weapons, but that proposal has not yet been voted on in the Senate.
