Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was three votes short of getting a gun ban passed in the Senate in 1994. She has never stopped trying.

She is pictured above on the right with Hillary Clinton.

Instead, Sen. Feinstein had the votes to pass a ten-year ban of "assault weapons". It became law on Sept. 13, 1994. It banned civilians from owning certain semi-automatic "assault weapons". The ban included "large capacity" magazines. The vote was 52 to 48. It expired and is no longer law.

Politicians called it the "Federal Assault Weapons Ban". The name of the law was the "Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act". It was part of the "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994". 

In a 1995 broadcast of CBS’ 60 Minutes, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said she supports an “outright ban” on all guns. The Senator said:

"If I could’ve gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them — Mr. and Mrs. America turn ’em all in — I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren’t here."