Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has said she wants to introduce a bill that would raise the minimum age for rifle buys. The announcement comes days after a 19-year-old man used a legally-purchased AR-15 to shoot and kill 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
Feinstein said in her statement that “Under current law, licensed gun dealers cannot sell a handgun to anyone under 21.” But they are, she stated, “allowed to sell assault rifles like the AR-15 to anyone over 18. This policy is dangerous and makes absolutely no sense.”
Therefore, Feinstein said she would “introduce a bill to require all firearms purchases from gun dealers be restricted to individuals who are at least 21 years old. If you can’t buy a handgun or a bottle of beer, you shouldn’t be able to buy an AR-15.”
Feinstein said the proposed measure was “common sense and I hope my Republican colleagues will join me in this effort.”
As we reported yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about the possibility of raising the minimum age for rifle buys in the wake of the Florida school shooting.
“I think that’s certainly something that’s on the table for us to discuss, and that we expect to come up over the next couple of weeks,” Sanders replied.
Dianne Feinstein’s Updated Assault Weapons Bill
Feinstein recently unveiled another bill in response to a mass shooting. In the wake of the Las Vegas shooting in October, Feinstein—the author of the original 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban—introduced an updated version of that bill with the support of 22 other Senate Democrats, including Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).
The measure, S.2095 or the Assault Weapons Ban of 2017, calls for the ban of various “military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.” It would also ban bump stocks and “other devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at fully automatic rates.”
The bill is currently sitting in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
