“We owe these families more than our prayers.”
U.S. President Joe Biden has once again called for the assault rifle ban and a tightening of gun laws in his country in response to Monday’s shooting that left six 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 questioned by reporters, the US president has insisted on the need to ban these “weapons of war”, which he assures that. have no reason to exist in the country.
“People are starting to see it, on TV there are EMTs showing what happens when a bullet goes into the body from a revolver or other type of gun, goes in a straight line and comes out. But what happens when it’s with an assault rifle, with an AR-15, is that. It enters the body and explodes inside.and it goes at a much higher speed,” he said.
He has also expressed support for the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects gun ownership under certain circumstances, but has 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 myself have two shotguns. My sons 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 U.S.and insisted that the situation, which is repeated over and over again in the country, is “completely ridiculous”.
Thus, he has assured that he has spoken with the chief of police of the county in which this Monday morning there was a shooting at the Presbyterian College of the Alliance, a private center in Nashville, Tennessee, and 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.
President calls for tougher laws
Biden has insisted on passing stricter legislation for assault rifles: “We have to do more to stop this gun violence that is tearing apart communities and tearing apart the soul of this nationWe need to protect our children so that 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 didn’t we can do even more together“, he assured.
“So again I call on Congress to pass the rule banning assault rifles. Let’s pass it. It shouldn’t be a partisan issue, it’s a matter of common sense. We have to act now. And people ask, why do I keep talking about this if we haven’t approved 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 handguns that can be mounted in half an hour at home.
For their part, the top Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives have. reproached their Republican colleagues for the obstacles they are putting in place to abort every legislative proposal intended to address the already endemic problem with gun violence in the United States.
Meanwhile, Republicans insist that banning assault rifles, the weapons with which in most cases these types of attacks are perpetrated, is not an option, as Andy Ogles’ congressman, who at Christmas 2021 posed with this type of weaponry along with his family.who has proposed to focus on the “mental health problems” of Americans.
