WASHINGTON — In late 1993, Democrats were on the cusp of a legislative triumph that seems inconceivable in today’s polarized debate over gun control: They were about to outlaw an entire class of firearms — semi-automatic assault rifles — as part of a big bipartisan crime bill.
But to win over moderates in both parties, they made a pair of concessions that to proponents seemed relatively modest, exempting more than 2,200 firearms from the list of prohibited weapons and requiring that the ban be renewed in 10 years.