Former President Bill Clinton said Thursday that President Trump should reinstate his assault weapons ban following shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that killed 31 people combined over the weekend.

“We have talked, tweeted and delayed long enough. This is about who we are as a country, what America will look like years from now, and whether our children and grandchildren will be safer and freer to grow up,” Mr. Clinton wrote in a column for Time magazine.

“Elected officials speak about the need for change. But the tragedies do keep happening, while the one thing that we know can reduce the number and the death tolls of mass shootings has not been done: re-instituting the ban on assault weapons and the limit on high-capacity magazines that was in effect from 1994 to 2004,” he wrote.

Mr. Clinton signed an “assault weapon” ban in 1994 — called Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act — which prevented the sale of semiautomatic firearms and high-capacity magazines for 10 years. Then-President George W. Bush chose not to renew the bill in 2004.

“I worked hard to pass and was proud to sign the ban on these weapons of war into law, and the results were clear: Mass shooting fatalities declined while they were in effect and have risen sharply since they were allowed to lapse,” Mr. Clinton said.

“We know reinstating the assault-weapons ban and the ammunition limit, and making improved background checks universal, will help,” he wrote.

Mr. Trump said there is “no appetite” for a ban on weapons classified as “assault weapons,” despite a Morning Consult poll finding a majority of Republicans support an assault weapons ban.

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