WASHINGTON (AP) – Mourning a unique American tragedy, tortured and angry President Joe Biden has called for new restrictions on firearms after a gunman shot and killed at least 19 children at a Texas elementary school.
Biden spoke from the White House on Tuesday night just an hour after returning from a five-day trip to Asia that involved mass shootings in the United States. He called for action to tackle gun violence after years of failure – and bitterly accused firearms manufacturers and their supporters of blocking legislation in Washington.
“When in God’s name are we going to face the gun lobby?” Biden said emotionally. “Why are we ready to live with this carnage?” Why do we keep allowing this to happen? “
With First Lady Jill Biden standing next to him in Roosevelt’s room, the president, who has suffered the loss of two of his own children – though not for gun violence – speaks in visceral terms about the grief of the victims’ relatives and the pain it will endure for the surviving students.
“Losing a child is like tearing off a part of your soul,” Biden said. “There is a cavity in your chest. You feel sucked out of it and you’ll never be able to get out. “
He called on the nation to keep its victims and families in prayer, but also to work harder to prevent the next tragedy, “It is time to turn this pain into action,” he said.
At least 19 students were killed at Rob Elementary School in the heavily Latin American city of Uwalde, Texas, according to local authorities. Among the dead were two adults. The gunman died after being shot by officials, local police said.
Just a week earlier, Biden, on the eve of his trip abroad, was traveling to Buffalo to meet with the families of the victims after a racist, hateful gunman killed 10 blacks at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Successive tragedies have served as sobering reminders of the frequency and brutality of the US gun violence epidemic.
“This type of mass shooting is rare anywhere else in the world,” Biden said, noting that other nations have people full of hatred or mental health problems, but no other industrialized nation is experiencing gun violence at the level of USA
“Why?” he asked.
It was too early to say whether the latest epidemic of violence could destroy the political crisis over the tightening of national gun laws, after so many others – including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which killed 26, including 20 children – have failed.
“The idea that an 18-year-old could go into a gun shop and buy two weapons of attack is just wrong,” Biden said. He had previously called for a ban on assault weapons, as well as stricter federal inspection requirements and red flag laws aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of those with mental health problems.
Late Tuesday, Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer launched possible action on two bills passed by the House of Representatives to expand federal-required arms purchases, but no votes are planned.
Biden was grim when he returned to the White House after being informed of the shooting at Air Force One. Shortly before landing in Washington, he spoke with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and offered him “any help,” the White House said. He ordered American flags to be waved in half by sunset on Saturday in honor of the victims in Texas.
His aides, some of whom had just returned from Asia with the president, gathered to watch Biden’s speech on West Wing television.
“I hoped when I became president, I wouldn’t have to do that again,” he said. “Another massacre.”
As a vivid reminder of the division, Biden’s call for gun action was boosted by a campaign in Georgia organized by Herschel Walker, who won the Republican nomination for the US Senate.
Speaking at an Asia-Pacific event to celebrate Biden’s trip to Asia, Vice President Kamala Harris said earlier that people usually say at times like, “Our hearts are breaking, but our hearts are still breaking.” … and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of these families. “
“We need to have the courage to take action … to ensure that something like this never happens again,” she said.
Echoing Biden’s call, former President Barack Obama, who called Sandy Hook’s shooting day the darkest of his administration, said: “It’s long overdue for action, all kinds of action.”
“Michelle and I grieve with families in Uwalde who are in pain that no one should bear,” he said in a statement. “We are also angry with them. Nearly ten years after Sandy Hook – and ten days after Buffalo – our country is paralyzed not by fear but by an arms lobby and a political party that have shown no desire to act in any way that could help prevent these tragedies.
Congress has failed to pass substantial legislation against gun violence since the two parties’ efforts to step up checks on firearms purchases collapsed after the 2012 shooting.
Despite months of work, a bill that was backed by a majority of senators fell to a filibuster – unable to meet the 60-vote threshold needed for progress.
In a passionate speech in the Senate on Tuesday, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Representing Newton, Connecticut, in the House during the Sandy Hook Massacre, asked colleagues why they bothered to run if they did. .. I will stand aside and do nothing.
“I’m here, on this floor, to beg – literally to fall on my hands and knees – to beg my colleagues,” he said.
Murphy said he planned to contact Republican Sen. John Cornin of Texas after the two agreed on an earlier bill to check the past, which never became law. He said he would contact other Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
“I just don’t understand why people here think we’re powerless,” Murphy said. “We are not.”
Cornin told reporters he was on his way to Texas and would speak to them later. Cruz issued a statement calling it a gloomy day. We are all completely sick and with a broken heart. “
Senator Joe Manchin, DW.Va., who sponsored gun legislation that failed to overcome Senate abuse after Sandy Hook, said, “We’re just pushing people who just won’t move.”
“It doesn’t make any sense at all why we can’t do healthy things and try to prevent some of it from happening,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Michael Balsamo, Alan Fram and Farnush Amiri contributed.
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