“How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” In an impassioned speech, Joe Biden called on the US Congress to find a way to restrict assault rifle sales. Thursday, June 2, nearly ten days after the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in a school in Uvalde, Texas, the American president castigated the elected Republicans who oppose such legislation.
The citizens have “enough” of these repeated shootings which mourn America, he hammered on the occasion of an appeal to the nation issued from the White House. “Over the past 20 years, more schoolchildren have died from firearms than the total number of police and soldiers who have died on duty. Think about it,” did he declare. The country has recorded several shootings in recent days, in Uvalde but also in a supermarket in Buffalo and, on Wednesday, in a hospital in Tulsa. “Too many everyday places have become places of killing, battlefields.”
Happening Now: President Biden addresses the nation on the recent tragic mass shootings, and the need for Congress to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence. https://t.co/Q7bRyBYwQ5
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 2, 2022
Behind his desk were 56 candles representing the victims of these massacres in all American states and territories.
“The Second Amendment” of the American Constitution, which guarantees the right to possess a weapon, “is not absolute”estimated the Democratic president, arguing for a national ban on the sale of semi-automatic assault rifles, as between 1994 and 2004. But, aware of the difficulty of adopting such a measure in Congress, where his party only has a very narrow majority, he qualified: “We must at least raise the age” minimum legal age to obtain such weapons, from 18 to 21 years old.
He also called for a ban on high-capacity magazines, the strengthening of criminal or psychological background checks on potential buyers and the vote on a text requiring individuals to keep their weapons locked up.
“I support the action (…) of a small group of Republican and Democratic senators who are trying to find a way, but my God, the fact that the majority of Republicans in the Senate do not want any of these proposals either even debated or put to the vote, I find that inadmissible”he lambasted. “We cannot betray the American people again,” he continued during this 17-minute speech. “It’s time for the Senate to do something.”
The whole challenge for the Democratic senators is to find measures that could obtain the approval of ten Republican senators, essential because of the qualified majority in the Senate. However, in a country where more than 30% of adults own at least one firearm, conservatives strongly oppose any measure that could violate rights “law-abiding citizens”.
Discussions in the Senate therefore revolve for the moment around limited proposals, such as background checks on arms buyers, which associations have been calling for for years.
In parallel, elected House of Representatives debated on Thursday another major bill that would ban, as Joe Biden demanded, the sale of semi-automatic rifles to those under 21 and that of high-capacity magazines. . These measures, which will be put to a vote in the House next week, have already been described as“ineffective”, “thoughtless” et “anti-American” by a group of Republicans. It therefore seems impossible that they can be adopted as they stand in the Senate.
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