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Biden lays out plan for gun reform

Former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate for President, has a plan to curb gun violence in America. He told an audience in Iowa that he wants to revive the 90s-era “assault weapons” ban, which Biden said he played an instrumental role in passing. He also laid out his thoughts on gun control in an op-ed published in the New York Times.

“We have a huge problem with guns. Assault weapons — military-style firearms designed to fire rapidly — are a threat to our national security, and we should treat them as such. Anyone who pretends there’s nothing we can do is lying — and holding that view should be disqualifying for anyone seeking to lead our country,” Biden wrote. “I know, because with Senator Dianne Feinstein I led the effort to enact the 1994 law that banned assault weapons and high-capacity magazines for 10 years. Those gun safety reforms made our nation demonstrably more secure.”

Biden criticized Trump’s statement after the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, in which he said “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.” Biden said Trump was implying nothing can be done to regulate firearms, which is false.

“I fought hard to extend the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines bans in 2004,” Biden wrote. “The Republicans who allowed these laws to expire asserted that they were ineffective. But, almost 15 years after the bans expired, with the unfortunate benefit of hindsight, we now know that they did make a difference.”

Biden is the front-runner in nearly all polls in the Democratic race to become the presidential nominee.