U.S. President Joe Biden has once again called for a ban on assault rifles and a tightening of gun laws in his country in response to Monday’s shooting that left six people dead, three of them children, at a Nashville school: «As a nation, and this is not hyperbole, we owe these families more than our prayers, we owe them action».
During an event in North Carolina, as well as when getting on and off his plane after being asked by journalists, the US president insisted on the need to ban these «weapons of war», which he assures that they have no reason to exist in the country.
«People are beginning to see it, on television there are emergency doctors who show what happens when a bullet enters the body of a revolver or other type of gun, enters in a straight line and exits. But what happens when it is with an assault rifle, with an AR-15, is that it enters the body and explodes inside, and it goes much faster,» he assured.
He also expressed his support for the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects gun ownership under certain circumstances, but insisted that these types of rifles are extremely dangerous and should not be legal to own in almost any case.
«I’m a Second Amendment man, I have two shotguns myself. My kids have shotguns, but everybody thinks the second amendment is absolute. You can’t go and buy an automatic weapon, you can’t have a machine gun, you can’t have a flamethrower. Why are we allowing these weapons of war to be on our streets and in our schools?» he has insisted.
For the president, it is «hard to believe» and «sickening» that gun-related deaths are the number one cause of underage deaths in the United States, and he insisted that the situation, which is repeated over and over again in the country, is «completely ridiculous.»
Thus, he assured that he has spoken with the chief of police of the county where this Monday morning there was a shooting at the Presbyterian College of the Alliance, a private school in Nashville, Tennessee, and has confirmed that the attacker was in possession of two of these assault rifles. He has also expressed his intention to speak with the families of the deceased, as well as to visit the city.
THE PRESIDENT CALLS FOR TIGHTENING THE LAWS
Biden has insisted on passing stricter legislation for assault rifles: «We need to do more to stop this gun violence that is tearing apart communities and tearing apart the soul of this nation, we need to protect our children so they learn to read and write, instead of cowering and hiding in a classroom. We need to act. These are weapons of war.
«Last year we came together to create the most significant gun safety legislation in 30 years. It was bipartisan. We got it done. And don’t tell me we can’t do even more together,» he has assured.
«So I again call on Congress to pass the rule banning assault rifles. Let’s pass it. It shouldn’t be a partisan issue, it’s a common sense issue. We need to act now. And people ask, why do I keep talking about this if we haven’t passed it? Because I want you to know who is not doing it, who is not helping, to put pressure on them,» he said.
So far, through executive orders, Biden has legislated to provide more resources to the police, to the intervention programs, to reinforce the storage of firearms and against the so-called ‘phantom weapons’, unregistered guns that can be assembled in half an hour at home.
For their part, the main Democratic leaders of the House of Representatives have reproached their Republican colleagues for the obstacles they are putting in the way of aborting each of the legislative proposals with which they intend to address the already endemic problem of gun violence in the United States.
Meanwhile, Republicans insist that banning assault rifles, weapons with which in most cases these types of attacks are perpetrated, is not an option, as Andy Ogles’ congressman — who posed with this type of weaponry with his family on Christmas 2021 — has proposed putting the focus on the «mental health problems» of Americans.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
