Republican Adam Kinzinger said Sunday that he is contemplating supporting an “assault weapons” ban following the recent tragic shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
“I have opposed a ban fairly recently. I think I’m open to a ban now,” the Illinois representative said during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union.
“It’s going to depend on what it looks like because there’s a lot of nuances on what constitutes certain things, but I’m getting to the point where I have to wonder,” he said.
The moderate GOP congressman’s growing consideration of such a gun regulation puts him at odds with much of his party, which opposed it on Second Amendment grounds and also on the argument that it would be ineffective.
Last Tuesday, an 18-year-old gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and started shooting in a fourth-grade classroom with an AR-15 style rifle, which he purchased legally on his 18th birthday. While the particular model of rifle is becoming more common as the weapon of choice for mass shootings, some Republicans point out that handguns are more commonly used in massacres than are rifles.
Kinzinger clarified that he may also be amenable to adding more layers of qualifications for prospective gun buyers of “assault weapons” rather than prohibiting them outright.
“The question is,” he said, “is it a ban versus an additional certification?” Kinzinger said that certain members of the GOP are “scared” to diverge from the party-line “cultist position,” which he suggested is an iron-clad opposition to gun control. The representative has embraced gun restrictions more than have many of his colleagues in the past. After the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, Kinzinger sent a bipartisan letter to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “urging a thorough re-evaluation of bump-stocks—devices reported to have been used by the perpetrator to dramatically increase the discharge rate of his firearms as he carried out these senseless killings.”
Kinzinger criticized the GOP for not being interested in negotiating a change in the legal age to buy guns, pointing to the instances of massacres perpetrated by teenagers.
“The problem is for those that support the Second Amendment like me, we have to be coming to the table with ways to mitigate 18-year-olds buying these guns and walking into schools,” Kinzinger said. “My side is not doing that. My side is not coming forward with reasonable ways to defend an amendment that we think is very important.”
Kinzinger’s comment comes days before the Supreme Court is expected to release its decision on a New York concealed-carry case.