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WASHINGTON: A somber President Joe Biden, the day after yet another mass shooting with an assault rifle, took his case to the American people and to Congress on Thursday night, pleading for gun safety measures he said would prevent at least some of the rampages a horrified America has witnessed in recent weeks.
“Enough. Enough. It’s time for each of us to do our part. It’s time to act,” Biden said in his first prime time speech on gun violence, decrying the “killing fields, battlefields” that American schools and other meeting places have become.
“Let’s hear the call and the cry. Let’s meet the moment. Let’s finally do something,” Biden said in a quickly arranged address before he headed to Rehoboth, Delaware, for the weekend. Alongside the president were two rows of candles, honoring the victims of gun violence in all 50 states and U.S. territories.
Biden ticked off his wish list: a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, universal background checks, a federal “red flag” law to keep weapon out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill, liability for both the gun industry and gun owners who do not lock up their firearms, and raising the age to purchase high-capacity weapons from 18 to 21.
But as he argued for gun measures he has pushed for over the course of his political career, he seemed to acknowledge he would not get his way with Congress. Republican lawmakers have successfully fought gun safety measures – including universal background checks – even after mass shootings like the one that took the lives of 20 elementary schoolers and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School a decade ago.
And even after a trio of shocking mass shootings – an attack motivated by racism at a Buffalo grocery store, the killing of 19 small children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, and the shooting of doctors and others at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Wednesday – Congress appears unlikely to pass substantive reform.
The Democratic-controlled House has approved a measure to limit gun ownership and require more background checks, but it is going nowhere in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to overcome a filibuster and pass legislation. That means all 50 Democrats would need to vote on the legislation and convince 10 Republican colleagues to join them.
A bipartisan team of senators is meeting to come up with an approach all could support. The current proposal does not include what many Democrats most wanted – a ban on assault-style weapons.
Biden Thursday night appeared to acknowledge the unlikelihood of a ban on military-style weapons and said the very least Congress could do is to raise the age to buy such a gun from 18 to 21.
Both the man accused in the Buffalo shooting and the killer who gunned down students and teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde were 18. In Texas, the minimum age to buy a pistol is 21, but the age to buy an assault-style weapon is 18.
“Don’t tell me age doesn’t make a difference,” Biden said. As for those who argue that 18-year-olds join the military and use such weapons, Biden said those people are trained and supervised by military experts.
The president noted that he had already taken executive action toward gun safety but needed the Senate to do its work as well. And if they don’t, Biden said, American voters should punish them this November by voting them out of office.
“I’ve been in this fight for a long time. I know how hard it is,” Biden said. But “I’ll never give up,” he added. “If Congress fails, I believe the majority of the American people won’t give up either” and will use their votes to change those who make law.
Still Congress remains deeply – and angrily – divided. At a House hearing on gun safety Thursday, Democrats slammed Republicans, arguing that the GOP cares more about guns than the safety of children in schools.
“You know who didn’t have constitutional right to life respected? The kids at Parkland and Sandy Hook and Uvalde and Buffalo – and the list goes on and on. So spare me the bull—,” Rep. David Cicilline, Rhode Island Democrat, said at the hearing, referring to the argument that Americans have the constitutional right to carry guns regardless of their mental state.
When a GOP colleague asked him to yield, Cicilline erupted. “No, I’m not going to yield and I’m not going to yield for my entire five minutes, so don’t ask again.”
Rep. Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, repeated the GOP argument that it is large cities run by Democratic mayors where shootings are happening.
“Democrats control the major cities that have the worst murder rates. That’s right. Your ideas have been shown to get people killed,” an angry Gohmert said.
Biden said he had spoken at length with the families of the victims of the recent shooting and was presented with the same message: “Do something. For God’s sake, do something.”
After previous shootings, “Nothing has been done,” Biden said. “This time, we must actually do something.”
