President Joe Biden has urged for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines following a series of horrific mass shootings that have shocked not only America, but the world, The Guardian reports.
In a fiery speech, Biden demanded: “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?”
Biden made a primetime White House address yesterday, with rows of candles behind him. He called on Congress to strengthen background checks on gun buyers and to repeal legal immunity for gun manufactuers.
The impassioned plea from the president comes after a month that saw much bloodshed from guns. Ten people were shot dead at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Both of these mass shootings were done by gunmen using an AR-15 style weapon.
There have been 20 mass shootings in the small-time since Uvalde, including this week in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A gunman shot and killed four people and then himself in a medical office.
Just moments after Biden concluded his speech, there was yet another shooting, this time outside of a megachurch in Iowa, that killed three, including the gunman.
Biden previous expressed outrage and grief over mass shootings in America. In this speech, he became more specific about breaking a wall of resistance on Capitol Hill to finally address gun control.
“We need to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21,” Biden said.
In 1994, a ban on assault weapons passed with bipartisan support in Congress, and was also backed by law enforcement. Biden said that this made a clear difference until it expired. It included nine categories of semiautomatic weapons, such as AK-47s and AR-15s.
In the decade that the law existed, mass shootings went down, Biden said.
But Republicans allowed the law to expire in 2004, and then the weapons were sold again. Mass shootings tripled.
Republicans continue to block any meaningful gun reform.
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