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mass shootings!!
Vice President Kamala Harris called for an assault weapons ban Saturday, saying that in the wake of two back-to-back mass shootings such arms are "a weapon of war" with "no place in a civil society."
"On the issue of gun violence, I will say, as I've said countless times, we are not sitting around waiting to figure out what the solution looks like. You know, we're not looking for a vaccine," Harris told reporters in Buffalo, New York, after attending the funeral for a victim of a mass shooting there earlier this month. "We know what works on this. It includes, let's have an assault weapons ban."
"You know what an assault weapon is? You know how an assault weapon was designed?" she continued. "It was designed for a specific purpose -- to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war with no place, no place in a civil society."
The comments from the vice president come as the nation is reeling from both Buffalo, where 10 people were killed in a racist mass shooting at a supermarket, and from a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, earlier this week in which 19 children and two teachers were killed by a gunman.
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Harris also called for enhanced background checks for firearm purchases, noting that, to date, there have been over 200 mass shootings in the country, despite being "barely halfway through the year."
"Everybody's got to stand up and agree that this should not be happening in our country, and that we should have the courage to do something about it," she said.
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Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said Sunday that he's open to supporting a federal ban on AR-15 rifles, saying his position on the issue has changed in the wake of a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school last week that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
"Look, I have opposed a ban, you know, fairly recently. I think I'm open to a ban now.
It's going to depend on what it looks like because there's a lot of nuances on what constitutes, you know, certain things," Kinzinger told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" when asked if he still opposed "a ban on the kind of assault weapons that were used in the shooting."
Kinzinger noted that an "extra license," or "extra training" may be required to own such weapons. But he said it was up to those who support the Second Amendment, like himself, to also be offering solutions to the discussion.