American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten has pushed for a ban on an entire category of firearms, urging the US to have the “courage” including Scotland and Australia demonstrated by enacting their strict gun controls.
“Today we renew our call for common sense gun safety legislation, including a ban on assault weapons. This is an epidemic,” Weingarten said, according to FOX News.
She added: “This is an epidemic that our great nation must solve. And how many lives will be shattered before we have the courage to do what Scotland has done, what Australia has done, what New Zealand has done, what other great democracies are doing? We have to solve this epidemic, and that is up to us.
FOX News noted: “Scotland got the UK to ban handguns and Australia launched a mandatory gun buy-back program in 1996 for semi-automatic rifles and shotguns .”
The AFT has teamed up with Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, a leading gun control lobby group, to “(call on) lawmakers to stand up to the gun lobby.”
They also support gun control lobby staple, the Brady campaign, on their website and cite a 2018 poll to try to show that Americans support an “assault weapons” ban.
However, on February 7, Breitbart News pointed to an ABC/Washington Post poll that showed the majority of Americans oppose a ban on “assault weapons”.
The poll was conducted among 1,003 adults from January 27 to February 1, 2023, and 51% of respondents opposed such a ban.
In 2019, The Associated Press reported that the AFT had teamed up with Everytown to oppose Florida teachers being given the option of being armed in class defense.
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ahawkins
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the author/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is a political analyst for Armed American Radio and an ambassador for Turning Point USA. AWR Hawkins holds a Ph.D. in military history, with an emphasis on the Vietnam War (Brown Water Navy), the United States Navy since its inception, the Civil War, and early modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Contact him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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