Senate Republicans Block Bill To Ban Grenade Launchers On American Streets

Republicans in the Senate this past week blocked a piece of legislation that, among other things, would have banned civilians owning grenade launchers in America. The bill was a new assault weapon ban, but it included the grenade launcher section because those are not explicitly illegal to own. But Republicans can't have any safety measures in this country, as Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

This past week, Republicans in the United States Senate blocked a motion to even bring a bill to the floor for voting like they didn't even wanna vote on this bill and this bill, this piece of legislation would've banned grenade launchers in the hands of American citizens. Republicans said, oh hell no. We're not gonna bring this bill to the floor. Why? Why would we wanna ban American citizens from having grenade launchers? It's their second amendment right. You think I'm kidding? But this piece of legislation was an assault weapons sim, similar to the one by the way, that the country used to have in place until about, was it 2006 when the Republicans who controlled Congress, then it came up for renewal. They didn't renew it, and the rest is history. Gun violence has skyrocketed since that moment in 2006. Now, that's not to say there wasn't gun violence before that, but it, I mean, that's when the statistics show like huge way up on the graph.

And in fact, this year we actually passed a milestone of having more mass shooting deaths in this country than at any point since that assault weapons ban expired. So we're in the middle of an epidemic of gun violence that is getting worse by the year. And Republicans in the Senate said, no, you cannot even bring this assault weapons ban to the floor, because by God, we got a Second Amendment and we're gonna protect it. We're gonna protect those couple of sentences written by people who owned weapons that were probably the most unreliable guns ever made in existence. Here's what the bill would've done. It would ban semi-automatic rifles with pistol grips, forward grips and folding or telescoping stocks, as well as rifles outfitted with grenade launchers, barrel shrouds were threaded barrels to allow for noise and flash suppressors to be attached. So grenade launchers. So as it stands right now in the United States of America, I have a Second Amendment right to go out and buy a fricking grenade launcher because you know, I needed to protect my family, or maybe I need it for hunting. Perhaps there is a large gaggle of deer over here, and if I fire a bullet, they're gonna start running. But if I just throw a grenade in the middle of it, I can get all the deer right. How dare you infringe upon my second amendment right to be able to launch grenades without any training.

Republican Senator John Barrasso said this, Americans have a constitutional right to own a firearm every day. People across Wyoming responsibly use their second amendment rights to keep and bear arms. Democrats are demanding that the American people give up their liberty. The second amendment

Is freedoms essential safeguard. Without it, there can be no liberty and there can be no security. So I can't have liberty if I don't own a grenade launcher. That's what you're telling me. That's what you're telling the country. Doesn't matter how many dead school kids we have, doesn't matter how many dead churchgoers we have, doesn't matter how many dead grocery shoppers we have by, for the love of God, we need these high powered assault rifles and grenade launchers on our streets so we can protect ourselves, protect ourselves from who the other people with grenade launchers. Like the only way to stop a bad guy with a grenade launcher is a good guy with a grenade launcher, right? That's your logic here. So we're just gonna have grenades flying all around our streets, Republicans telling us like, we gotta do something about crime. Cool. Maybe take the grenade launchers outta the hands of the gang members, right? Nope. Can't do that.

And assault weapons ban does not infringe upon your second amendment rights. You can still own guns, you can still own as many guns as you want. You just can't have a gun capable of killing a hundred people in like 10 seconds. That's, that's the difference. You can still have your shotguns and your rifles to go hunting. Nobody's infringing upon that. You can have your handguns or your shotguns and rifles to protect your home and your family. You still have that, right?