Henry Cuellar, Vicente Gonzalez vote against House assault weapons ban

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. House authorized the Assault Weapons Ban on Friday, a invoice that might impose the primary ban in a long time on semi-automatic weapons. It follows mass shootings in Uvalde and throughout the nation, and members of the Texas delegation voted largely alongside social gathering traces.

Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, had been the one Texans to buck their social gathering after they voted against the invoice, which seems destined to fail within the Senate. The two members had been amongst 5 House Democrats to oppose the laws, which narrowly handed on a 217-213 vote.

The invoice would ban the importing, manufacturing, promoting, transferring or possession of sure kinds of semi-automatic weapons. It would cowl semi-automatic pistols and rifles that settle for removable magazines and have sure kinds of barrels, grips and shares.

The passage of the laws comes after years of mass shootings, together with the shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and at a church in Sutherland Springs, the place the gunmen used such weapons. Some Democrats spoke in favor of the laws on the House ground Friday whereas standing subsequent to photographs of the victims of the Uvalde taking pictures.

“There are 19 babies who were murdered at Robb Elementary School in Texas who will never have the right to vote. … There are two teachers who were murdered who will never have the opportunity to seek the future that was theirs,” Rep. Al Green, D-Houston, stated earlier than Friday’s vote. “We have a governor in the state of Texas who could have saved all of those lives if he had … after the shooting at Walmart [in El Paso] that took 23 lives … legislation such as what we’re passing today.”

The laws stands nearly no likelihood of passing the Senate, the place 60 votes are wanted to finish debate. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who was the GOP chief in bipartisan gun security talks final month, informed reporters there could be no extra gun negotiations after Congress passed a modest gun measure earlier this summer time.

Congress most just lately handed an assault weapons ban in 1994, but it surely expired 10 years later. The mass shootings have renewed calls from Texas politicians and different Democrats for an additional ban.

Cuellar and Gonzalez, who’re in tight reelection races this yr, had been the one two Texas Democrats to not co-sponsor the semi-automatic weapons ban.

Republicans blasted Democrats for supporting the laws.

“What would do more right now than banning AR-15s would be to ban Democrat thinking in the big cities that’s allowing the crime rates to just explode,” Rep. Louie Gohmert of Tyler stated on the House ground earlier than Friday’s vote.

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