Elections

Obama advocates reintroducing assault weapons ban

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
Font Size:

President Barack Obama declared during Tuesday’s presidential debate that his goals as president include the reinstatement of a so-called “assault weapons ban” in the United States.

As part of a plan to reduce street violence in cities — including in his own hometown of Chicago — Obama proposed “seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced.”

This appears to be among the boldest pro-gun-control comments Obama has made as president, and the first time has has openly called for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.

“So my belief is that, A, we have to enforce the laws we’ve already got, make sure that we’re keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill,” Obama said when asked about gun control. “We’ve done a much better job in terms of background checks, but we’ve got more to do when it comes to enforcement.”

“But I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don’t belong on our streets,” he added. “And so what I’m trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally.”

“Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s. They’re using cheap hand guns.”

Follow Matthew on Twitter

Tags : debates
Matthew Boyle