GOP’s Brian Mast: President Trump Must Enact Immediate ‘Temporary Ban’ on AR-15s

Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) is asking President Trump to enact an immediate “temporary ban” on AR-15 sales while Congress weighs whether to ban the rifles altogether.

Multiple Democrat Senators and Representatives are pushing an “assault weapons” ban and Rep. Mast used a February 25 Face the Nation appearance to push a specific ban on AR-15s as well.

Mast said,

We’ve seen a lot of shootings out there. We’ve seen what’s happened in Parkland, we’ve seen what happened in Las Vegas, we saw what happened in Orlando. And for me personally, it pains to know that I went out there, willing to defend my country, willing to give everything, with almost the exact same weapon that’s used to go out there and, unfortunately, kill children here in Parkland. And I think there’s very real opportunity here for response and for action.

It needs to be noted that an AR-15 is not “almost the exact same weapon” that Mast used. He used an M-16, which resembles an AR-15, but is fully automatic. M-16s have a selector switch on the left side of the rifle that allows military personnel to select their rate of fire–semi, full-auto, three round bursts–but an AR-15 is strictly semiautomatic. (Even an AR-15 with a bump stock only fires on round per each pull of the trigger.)

Nevertheless, Mast is pushing for a ban on AR-15s and, for now, is asking President Trump to put a “temporary ban” in place to give Congress time to act.

Masts suggests the temporary AR-15 ban be modeled after the terrorist travel ban. Of course, terrorists do not have a constitutional right to travel to our country but Americans posses a constitutional right to keep and bear arms that are in “common use” generation to generation.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.