Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said he is now in favor of a ban on assault-style weapons.
"I don't know how I can responsibly look at those young people and not say, 'We need to do something,'" Warner said, referring to the nationwide marches against gun violence that survivors of the Feb. 14 Parkland, Florida shooting helped organize.
"We can debate around the edges where and what the perfect solution is … but it's time for action," Warner told The Virginian-Pilot.
"You change the trigger, you change the sight, and some weapons are in, some weapons are out. There's not going to be a perfect solution," said Warner.
One reasonable goal is reducing the legal number of bullets in a gun's magazine, he continued, "but the notion that just because it's hard, we shouldn't do it — I just don't think we can sit through more of the mass murders and not take action."
Gun rights and restrictions on some weapons do not contradict each other, Warner said, and "I don't think there's anything contradictory to say, 'I support your right to have a gun for self-protection, long gun for hunting purposes … you can still support that and recognize that military-style weapons are creating such havoc."
Warner and some other Democratic senators voted against a ban on assault-style weapons in 2013 after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where 20 children and six adults were killed, the Virginian-Pilot reported.
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