After a recent spate of shootings in the US, President Joe Biden stressed Thursday that it’s sick that the United States still allows the purchase of semi-automatic firearms, renewing his push to ban assault weapons.
Biden’s comments come in light of the most recent spate of gun violence in America which has seen more than a dozen killed and even more wounded in three separate shootings in Virginia Walmart, at the University of Virginia, and in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado.
Speaking outside the Nantucket Fire Department in Massachusetts, where he was spending Thanksgiving with his family, President Biden vowed to work with Congress – even during the lame duck session- to get rid of assault weapons, pointing out that there’s not a single, solitary rationale for it.
He said he’s determined to try even though the chances of a ban actually clearing Congress remains slim with the Senate filibuster firmly in place and an incoming Republican-controlled House, which makes it highly unlikely that anything will pass over the next two years.
Though back in July the House passed a ban on assault weapons, it was largely seen as a symbolic step since the measure is almost certain to fail in the Senate.
The bill, which came after a spate of mass shootings since the beginning of 2022, would ban the sale, import, manufacture, or transfer of certain semi-automatic weapons but does not call for the removal or confiscation of any covered weapon Americans currently own.
After urging Congress in June to reinstate the assault weapons ban – which was passed in 1994 and expired under President George W. Bush in 2004- Biden said in August he is determined to ban assault weapons nationwide.
Also in June, Biden signed the most significant federal gun legislation in nearly three decades – a bipartisan gun safety law – which bolstered clarification on the “boyfriend loophole,” among other provisions, and background checks.
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