Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said it is “time to name and shame” AR-15 makers during opening comments Wednesday for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on “assault weapons.”
C-SPAN3 aired the committee hearing, where Durbin sat with various AR-15 advertisements sitting prominently behind him.
Durbin claimed there have been “309 mass shootings” in the United States this year, then showed a video in which gun control proponents repeatedly using the phrase “weapons of war.”
After the video, Durbin said, “This is the tenth hearing the Senate Judiciary Committee has held this Congress on how to reduce gun violence in America.”
He criticized laws that allow 18-year-olds to buy AR-15s and said, “Why are these killing machines flying off the shelves after they were banned for a decade, until 2004?”
Durbin said:
Maybe it’s the ads, that market the ‘assault weapons.’ Symbols of independence, freedom, or the promise that owning an AR-15-style-gun will make you more of a man. Or could it be the enticing prospect of totting around the same same style of weapon that soldiers and marines use to defend our country in combat?
He added, “These are the marketing tactics used by gun manufacturers like Mossberg, Bushmaster, and Daniel Defense. It’s time to name and shame these companies.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News 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 and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.