Biden urges action against gun lobbies after Texas school shooting
6 Min Read
President Joe Biden addresses the US nation following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, calling for action on gun control laws.
-
Biden delivering his speech following the latest school Uvalde school shooting, from the White House, May 24, 2022
Hours after the 18-year-old gunman killed at least 20 children and 2 adults at Uvalde elementary school in Texas, US President Joe Biden addressed the nation on Tuesday night, focusing on tighter gun control law.
“We as a nation have to ask when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby. When in God’s name do we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?” he asked.
President Biden addresses the nation on the horrific elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. https://t.co/hyscFyyNfz
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 25, 2022
This has been the second mass shooting in 10 days following the attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
According to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the suspected shooter was killed by police.
Biden spoke to Abbott and offered “any and all assistance he needs” in response to the shooting, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said in a tweet.
Grief, shock, and outrage were spread through Uvalde, located just over an hour’s drive to the Mexico border, and evoked sad memories of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. massacre that left 20 kids and 6 adults dead, and the Columbine High School shooting of 1999 that killed 12 students and one teacher.
-
Grief in Uvalde
Biden told the victims' parents that losing a child is “like having a piece of your soul ripped away," ordering that the US flag at the White House be flown at half staff and upon public buildings and grounds.
The US president's attack on the US gun industry seemed to be half-hearted at best after he had been blaming stalled progress on gun control measures for years on the US Congress, while neither he nor his Democratic party - which has the majority- is unwilling to tackle this rampant issue.
Elected officials react
Officials who back stricter gun safety measures voiced their outrage following the crime.
“I would normally say in a moment like this — we would all say naturally — that our hearts break. But our hearts keep getting broken,” Vice President Kamala Harris said, adding, “As a nation, we have to have the courage to take action and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible public policy to ensure something like this never happens again.”
Sen. Ted Cruz commented by saying, “Inevitably when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it,” adding, “You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens. That doesn’t work. It’s not effective.”
Read more: Gun violence in US leading cause of death among youth
Sen. Chris Murphy, called for taking meaningful action to address gun violence.
“Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate, why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in position of authority if your answer as the slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing?” he asked.
It is worth noting that Murphy, represented the US House district in 2012 where a gunman killed 26 people at Sandy Hook, including 20 children.
“I’m here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues,” he added. “Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely.”
“We have mass shooting after mass shooting and, you know, spare me the bull**** about mental illness,” Murphy told reporters. “We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, described the shooting as a “cold-blooded massacre.”
“For too long, some in Congress have offered hollow words after these shootings while opposing all efforts to save lives,” she said in a statement, adding, “It is time for all in Congress to heed the will of the American people and join in enacting the House-passed bipartisan, commonsense, life-saving legislation into law.”
Azov insignia-bearing teen carries out, streams mass shooting in US
18-year-old Payton Gendron has been detained without bail on first-degree murder charges following a mass shooting carried out just 10 days ago at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The spree has claimed the lives of at least 10 people, the latest Buffalo Police Department tally revealed.
The heavily armed gunman had a rifle and tactical gear on his person at the time of the incident, which the Buffalo police commissioner said saw 13 people shot, 10 of whom died at the scene before the police apprehended the assailant.
Read more: A gun is worth a thousand Nazi words
The shooting, local media said, started in the parking lot and took into the supermarket itself shortly thereafter.
Gun violence surging in the US
Such attacks came in light of soaring gun violence in the United States and loose gun laws that permit just about anyone to possess a firearm.
Over the past five-year period, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) could only trace 0.98% of suspected "ghost guns" handed in by law enforcement to an individual purchaser, the department added.
According to the organization Gun Violence Archive (GVA), more than 15,070 people have died from gun violence since the beginning of the year in the United States, including suicides.
Over the whole of 2020, the number was at 45,000 dead, said GVA, a figure which has prompted the White House to speak of an "epidemic".
So far in 2022, according to the organization, 12,166 have sustained injuries from gun violence, with a total of 179 shootings carried out over the United States.
