(Trends Wide) — President Joe Biden delivered a rare evening address on guns to pressure US lawmakers to take action as the United States grapples with another mass shooting.
In remarks from a candle-lined Cross Hall at the White House, Biden recalled his visits to recent mass shooting memorials in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.
“Being there in that small town like so many other communities across America, I couldn’t help but think that there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places, that have become killing fields, battlefields, here in America,” Biden said of his visit to Uvalde.
He added: “For God’s sake, how much more slaughter are we willing to accept?”
Biden said a recent spate of horrific mass shootings should prompt the nation to take action to prevent more shootings by passing gun control restrictions.
After meeting with families mourning their slain loved ones in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, Biden said their message was clear: “Do something.”
“Nothing has been done,” Biden said. “This time that cannot be true. This time we must do something.”
President Biden urged action in the wake of three mass shootings, saying “this is not about taking anyone’s guns away.”
“In fact, we believe we should treat responsible gun owners as an example of how every gun owner should behave,” Biden added during remarks Thursday.
After other mass shootings in the United States, such as those in Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland, Biden said nothing has changed.
“This time that cannot be true. This time we must do something,” he said. “The problem we face is one of conscience and common sense.”
Biden calls for raising age to buy assault weapons to 21
The president has called for reinstating an assault weapons ban that he said helped prevent horrific murders but which expired in 2004.
“We should reinstate the assault weapons ban,” Biden said at the White House, making a new call to ban the kind of high-capacity weapons used in recent shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.
Biden said that in the 10 years the law was in place, mass shootings have decreased.
“After the Republicans let the law expire in 2004, those guns were allowed to go back on sale. Mass shootings tripled,” Biden said.
He said the weapons inflicted appalling damage on their victims and particularly on children.
“The damage is so devastating and in Uvalde, the parents had to do DNA tests to identify the remains of their children, nine and 10-year-olds,” he said.
The president noted that the rights granted by the Second Amendment “are not unlimited.”
Biden also said the age to buy assault weapons should be raised from 18 to 21 if lawmakers can’t agree on an outright ban on those firearms.
“We should at least raise the age to be able to buy one at 21,” Biden said at the White House.
He said he was aware of criticism that some 18- to 21-year-olds serve in the military and handle such weapons as part of their service. However, Biden said those people receive “training and supervision from the best-trained experts in the world.”
“Don’t tell me raising the age won’t make a difference,” Biden said.
Gun reform must happen ‘for the children we’ve lost, the children we can save,’ says Biden
President Biden ended his speech Thursday with a final call for action, saying change needs to happen “for the children we have lost, the children we can save.”
He called on lawmakers and voters to “hear the call and the cry” and “find the time.”
“It is time for each of us to do our part. It is time to act. For the children we have lost, for the children we can save, for the nation we love,” Biden said.
“Let’s finally do something. God bless the families who are suffering. God bless you all,” he added.
The President ended his speech with a prayer: “’May he lift you up on the wings of an eagle and bury you with the breath of dawn, make you shine like the sun and hold you in the palm of his hand.’ That is my prayer for all of you. God bless you”.
“Why do we keep letting this happen?”
Biden was standing in the hallway of the White House, where 56 candles burned behind him to represent the victims of gun control in every US state and territory.
Biden had been privately considering making a speech about the recent mass shootings even before four people were killed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Wednesday night, his aides say. Discussions continued through Thursday morning, and the president finally decided to speak at the White House before leaving Washington for a few days.
He has been reported three times in the last three weeks about mass shootings. He was spending time with his family at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, when his national security adviser told him that 10 people had been shot to death in a grocery store in a racist attack in Buffalo, New York. He was flying back from his first trip to Asia when aides delivered the latest on a gunman who opened fire in an elementary school classroom in Uvalde, Texas. And he was in Washington Wednesday night when he got the third report, this time for a shooting at a medical building in Tulsa.
This speech would be Biden’s most effusive on guns since the massacre at a Texas elementary school.
Since then, there have been a number of additional mass shootings in states across the country, including Tulsa on Wednesday. That shooting left five dead, including the gunman.
In the hours after the Texas massacre, Biden delivered an emotional seven-minute speech at the White House, calling the repeated gun killings of Americans “sick.”
“Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” she asked.
Since then, however, Biden has only selectively waded into the gun control debate, stopping short of endorsing any specific legislative action to prevent further killings.
On Wednesday, the president expressed scant optimism that Congress would agree to new gun control legislation, even as a bipartisan group of senators meets to weigh options.
“I served in Congress for 36 years. I’m never totally sure,” Biden said when asked if he thought lawmakers would agree to new gun laws.
“Depends. So I don’t know,” Biden said. “I haven’t been in the negotiations that are going on right now.”
The lukewarm response was an indication that Biden is wary of associating himself too much with nascent efforts on Capitol Hill to reach a gun control compromise.
While Biden said on Tuesday he would talk to lawmakers about guns, the White House later said he would only get involved when the time is right.
Both Biden and his advisers have suggested they have exhausted their options on executive action to address weapons, though they continue to explore avenues for unilateral action.
“There’s the Constitution. I can’t dictate these things. I can do the things I’ve done, and whatever executive action I can take I’ll continue to take. But I can’t ban a gun, I can’t change background checks. I can’t do that.” he said Monday.
Speaking a day after consoling families in Texas, Biden expressed limited hope that certain Republicans, such as Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and one of his main allies, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, could be convinced to support some kind of new gun laws.
“I don’t know, I think there is an understanding on the part of rational Republicans, and I consider McConnell a rational Republican, Cornyn as well. There is an acknowledgment on their part that they cannot continue like this,” he said.
McConnell has appointed Cornyn to start talks with Democrats about some kind of legislation to prevent more mass shootings, though discussions are still in their preliminary stages.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who participated in a bipartisan meeting Wednesday on gun safety, said he and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham are in talks about changes to red flag laws and there is still work to be done.” meaningful” to do.
The senators seek to strengthen state laws that allow authorities to take guns away from people considered at risk, known as red flag laws.
Blumenthal called the conversation “productive and encouraging” and said the negotiators “everyone talks multiple times a day.”
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would introduce legislation to ban military-style assault weapons next week as the chamber moves to address gun violence.
