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Biden would push a buyback program for assault-style weapons

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden says he'd push a voluntary federal buyback program to encourage Americans to give up their military-style weapons and ammunition.

Former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a public employees union candidate forum Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a public employees union candidate forum Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)Read moreJohn Locher / AP
    by Bill Barrow, The Associated Press
    Published 

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he'd push a voluntary federal buyback program to encourage Americans to give up their military-style weapons and ammunition.

The former vice president told CNN on Monday that the buybacks would be in addition to his push for renewing a lapsed federal ban on any new manufacturing and sales of such firearms.

Biden's comments came following two mass shootings last weekend that left 31 people dead in Texas and Ohio. Federal officials are investigating anti-immigrant bias as a motive in the Texas massacre.

The former vice president says President Donald Trump is encouraging white nationalists with his rhetoric.

Biden stopped short of saying Trump himself is a white supremacist. But Biden says the president talks about immigrants and nonwhites “in almost subhuman terms.”