President Barack Obama challenged Congress Tuesday to reinstate a ban on assault weapons, and some Long Island lawmakers have voiced support for the measure.
The president's remarks came just days after a shooting in Orlando, Florida left 49 people dead and injured at least 50 more -- an event authorities are calling the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
Rep. Peter King, a Republican who voted for the original ban in 1994, says he believes the ban should be reinstated, but noted that the majority of Congress disagrees.
"I don't want to give anyone false hope," King says. "It's not going to pass. That I can tell you. It should, but it won't, and that's the reality. The solid majority of members of Congress from around the country do not want to reinstate the ban."
Carolyn McCarthy, a former congresswoman from Long Island, says she's frustrated by opposition to the ban but thinks it will eventually pass. McCarthy is well known as an advocate for stricter gun laws since 1993, when her husband was killed and her son critically injured by a gunman on the LIRR.
She says that change will come slowly, but support for it should grow.
"It has to be the American people," McCarthy says. "They have to put pressure on Congress and on state legislators."