Senate to take up assault weapons ban

Jackie Kucinich, USA TODAY | USATODAY

The Senate on Wednesday will hold the first hearing to consider a revamped assault weapons ban, but despite the emotionally loaded witness list, the ban is unlikely to become law this year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the author of the first ban, will preside over the hearing, which will feature testimony from Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, was one of the 20 schoolchildren shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14.

Dr. William Begg, an EMS medical director who was working in the Danbury Hospital emergency room the day of the shootings, will also testify.

The future of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, which would ban 157 kinds of "military-style" assault weapons, is gloomy at best in the Democratic-controlled Senate and worse in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. Neither the House nor the Senate versions of the assault weapons ban have Republican co-sponsors.

Lawmakers who have championed the bill acknowledged that its path to passage would be difficult but hoped that public opinion would help push hesitant lawmakers to give it a second look.

"I recognize it's an uphill battle, but I also know that these events are going to continue and America has to step up," Feinstein, D-Calif., told MSNBC on Monday. "I think we will make the case that this is constitutional, I think we will make the case that these weapons do not belong on the streets of our cities."

Feinstein's bill would ban large-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Adam Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, used a .223-caliber Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle with a 30-round magazine.

While there is slight majority public support for an assault weapons ban -- 55% support the idea, according to a Jan 14 poll by the Pew Research Center -- it has yet to translate into congressional support.

Several of Feinstein's Democratic colleagues -- particularly those with tough re-election bids on the horizon -- have indicated they are not going to support the ban.

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who supported the extension of the assault weapons ban in 2004, told The New York Times he would not support Feinstein's new bill.

Pryor is one of four Democrats in Republican-leaning states targeted by a recent National Rifle Association newspaper ad that advocates against and questions the effectiveness of President Obama's proposals to end gun violence.

The also ran in West Virginia, home of Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is a part of bipartisan negotiations over the possibility of extending background checks for gun purchases but who opposes an assault weapons ban.

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president for the NRA, spoke out against Feinstein's bill and other congressional proposals during a speech Saturday to the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo Banquet in Salt Lake City.

"If they limit our access to semi-automatic technology and high-capacity magazines, they limit our ability to defend ourselves," he said. "And they don't have the right to take that right away!"

There were signs Monday that the bill would -- at minimum -- continue through the committee process. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced Monday that the assault weapons ban would be one of four gun-related bills he plans to bring to a vote in the committee shortly.