Biden Renews Call for Assault Weapons Ban After Trump Shooting. It's Likely to Fall Flat

After the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump by a gunman with an AR-style rifle led some lawmakers to reiterate calls for increased gun control, President Biden on Tuesday again said it was time for a federal assault weapons ban.

Still, the attack against Trump isn’t likely to move the needle on Capitol Hill, experts say.

“What happened to former President Trump at his rally was absolutely horrific,” Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), who chairs the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, told KQED. “The fact that this happened should put us all on high alert that we need to be making some changes.”

He said last weekend’s shooting, which also left one rally attendee dead and two others injured, was a reminder that the U.S. needs stricter gun control — including legislation requiring universal background checks, which he has introduced on the House floor multiple times.

The most recent attempt, Thompson’s Bipartisan Background Checks Act, introduced in February 2023 with Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania), has received overwhelming support from voters, he said.

Background checks are contentious at the policy level, though. Thompson’s first bill stalled after passing the House in 2021, and the more recent version hasn’t been brought to the House floor for a vote since it was introduced last year.

The assassination attempt “might” make gun control a larger issue for voters come November, said Garen Wintemute, the director of UC Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program, but as was the case with other high-profile acts of gun violence, he doesn’t think significant change will come from Congress.

“My guess is it will take its place among other mass shootings,” he said.

“The policies on which there’s most agreement, for example, that there be a background check for all purchases of firearms … probably wouldn’t have bearing here,” Wintemute said, especially given that the gun used in the shooting is believed to have been purchased legally by the shooter’s father.

He also doesn’t expect to see increased support for a potential ban on assault rifles, which Biden called for on Tuesday in remarks to the NAACP convention in Las Vegas. Thompson did not say that he supported a ban on assault weapons, calling the proposal “divisive.”

“There are a number of things that we can do; we can regulate them the same way they regulate machine guns, a much higher standard than regular long guns,” he said.

Instead of leading to a federal gun control push, the shooting is likely to reaffirm the beliefs of people in favor of stricter gun laws and have little sway with those opposed, Wintemute said.

“Here’s another case in which an assault-type rifle gets used to kill and injure a lot of people — that’s what it’s designed to do,” he said. “I really don’t think that there’s much chance — any chance — at the federal level of a ban on this type of weapon.”

KQED’s Brian Watt contributed to this report.