The Nevada House delegation, which represents the state where modern America’s deadliest mass shooting occurred in 2017, voted Friday along party lines on a ban on semi-automatic weapons that would was narrowly passed by Congress.
Friday’s vote marks the first of its kind since Congress allowed a 1994 ban on high-powered firearms to expire a decade later.
The bill would make it illegal to import, sell or manufacture a long list of semi-automatic weapons, including some of the legally modified rifles used in the Las Vegas Strip shootings on October 1, 2017, which left 60 people dead and hundreds more. injured.
“Americans deserve to be safe”: House passes assault weapons ban that has little chance in the Senate
In alphabetical order, here’s how the Nevada delegation voted on the measure and what they had to say about their vote:
Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev.
Nevada’s only Republican congressman voted against the legislation, calling the bill disrespectful in a statement late Friday.
In the statement, he criticized the legislation for labeling “many of America’s most common firearms as so-called ‘assault weapons,'” including “AK and AR-type weapons,” he said. said Amodei, “of which there are already millions in circulation.”
Amodei, who represents Northern Nevada’s only congressional district, also said he would not support the ban “simply because less than 0.0007% of the population decides to engage in criminal activity.”
His office did not immediately respond Friday night to a request for further clarification on that statistic — including Amodei’s source and what values the percentage was calculated on.
Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev.
“We need to protect our communities, we need to save our children, and we need to stem the violence that has become far too common for so many Americans,” Horsford said in a statement Friday after voting in favor of the measure.
In the statement, he pointed out that the Las Vegas shooting was carried out by “an assailant with multiple assault weapons.”
More than half of the 24 firearms recovered after the attack on the shooter’s hotel room on the Strip were semi-automatic rifles legally modified to fire like automatic weapons.
Perched in a 32nd-floor suite, the gunman opened fire on a crowd across the street at a country music festival, unleashing about 1,100 shots in 10 minutes.
Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev.
Lee voted to ban the guns, she said on social media, “to keep our children safe and protect our communities.”
“Weapons of war have no place on our streets, but the majority of Republicans disagree,” Lee wrote. “They would rather offer thoughts and prayers than take action against gun violence.”
Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev.
On social media, Titus said she voted for the ban because “assault weapons are designed to inflict maximum damage.”
“A bullet fired by someone can tear softball-sized wounds from victims,” she added. “AND they can fire up to 60 rounds per minute. We need to get them off our streets and out of our communities.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Rio Lacanlale is the Las Vegas correspondent for the Reno Gazette Journal and the USA Today Network. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter @riolacanlale. Support local journalism by subscribing to RGJ today.
