On Sunday, several lawmakers called for the reintroduction of the ban on assault weapons after the tragedy that took place Friday in Newtown, Connecticut. The deadly shooting rampage inside an elementary school has prompted lawmakers, including President Obama to propose changes to the gun policy, according to two White House officials.

Sunday evening, President Obama, was in Newtown and said the nation overall has failed in its duty to give our children protection and that has to change, he insisted. He also said that no law will prevent all violence however, that also can be an excuse to not act.

Currently the White House is weighing a number of options and President Obama’s scope or the details of his approach are still not clear. One probability is a ban on magazines that are high capacity. The magazine is attached to the firearm and stores large amounts of bullets and can be reloaded very quickly.

In 2004, an assault weapons ban that was passed in 1994 expired. It included a ban on all magazines that held in excess of 10 rounds. Shootings recently, including Fridays, involved firearms that had a capacity much higher that allowed the shooter to fire more shots before he had to reload, which could give someone time to intervene.

The term assault weapons refers to a group of firearms that are semiautomatic, those that only need a single pull of a trigger for each shot to be fired and then automatically load the following round.

The law in 1994 included 19 models of semiautomatic firearms and their duplicates or copies that were banned as well as rifles that were semiautomatic that could be armed with magazines that were detachable and had two or more other characteristics such has a flash suppressor, threaded barrel, protruding pistol grip or a telescoping or folding stock.