Former US President Donald Trump has appeared this Friday as a star at the annual convention of the National Rifle Association (NRA, in English), where he made a strong defense of weaponsjust three days after the shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde (Texas).
Trump stuck to the Republican script by attributing the massacre to the mental health of the attackeran 18-year-old named Salvador Ramos, and attacked “the grotesque efforts” of the Democrats for greater control over arms purchases.
“Gun control policies pushed by the left they would have done nothing to prevent the horror That had place. Absolutely nothing,” said the former president speaking at the convention center in Houston, Texas, the same state where the massacre occurred.
The recipe of the Republican, applauded several times, involves installing metal detectors at school entrances and reinforcing the armor of the doors, but in no case limit access to weapons because, he has said, “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
Blame the “badness” of the attacker
Tuesday’s massacre, the deadliest at a school since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre that left 28 dead, has reopened the eternal gun debate in United States.
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A discussion that always comes up with the same: the Second Amendment to the Constitutionwhich enshrines the right of Americans to own guns, and tight majorities in Congress.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, has a call to “stand up” to the arms ‘lobby’and Democrats want to push background check laws for gun buyers, but for Republicans the issue is mental health and school safety.
Trump, who read the name of the 21 victims With the sound of bells ringing in the background, he pointed directly at the attacker: “The monster that committed this crime is pure evil, pure cruelty, pure hate,” he said.
And you have considered that in no case can you blame “the wonderful NRA” for these crimes.
“Every time one disturbed persona the demented commits such a horrible crime, there is always a grotesque effort by some to use suffering to promote their extremist political agenda,” the president criticized before an audience where, paradoxically, it was forbidden to access with weapons.
protests at the door
While, thousands of people gathered outside the Houston Convention Center to protest the holding of the NRA conference, which kept the event going despite numerous calls for it to be canceled after the massacre.
The participants in the protest came equipped with posters with messages such as “Ban Assault Rifles Now”“When will you love your kids more than guns?”, and “Assault rifles are for murder.”
In addition to Trump, other Republican figures paraded the stage, such as the senator from Texas Ted Cruzwho in recent days has blamed the massacre on the low security at the school gates.
The one who did give in, in part, to the pressure was the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, who he canceled his face-to-face participation at the convention to offer a press conference in Uvalde.
However, the president of Texas, one of the most lax states in the purchase of weapons, defended firearms from the scene of the tragedy and considered that it would be “wrong” to force a criminal record check of arms buyers.
Still, he did not avoid Trump’s rebuke for his absence from the convention: “I am honored to be here in the great state of Texas with the wonderful patriots of the NRA. And unlike some, I didn’t disappoint you by not showing up“, declared the former president during his speech.
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