WASHINGTON – President Biden on Thursday called on lawmakers to respond to communities turned into “killing fields” by pushing far-reaching arms restrictions, urging Congress to ban assault weapons, expand inspections and pass red flag laws after massacres in Texas and New York.
In a rare evening address to the nation, Mr. Biden dared Republicans to ignore the recurring convulsions of anger and grief over gun violence, continuing to block gun measures backed by a large majority in both parties and even among gun owners.
“My God,” he said from the Hall of the Cross, a ceremonial part of the White House residence that was lit with candles in honor of the victims of gun violence. “I find it unconscionable that the majority of Republicans in the Senate do not want any of these proposals, even if they are discussed or voted on. We cannot mislead the American people again. “
Mr Biden’s speech came a day after a massacre in Tulsa, Oklam, which killed four people and nine days after a massacre in Uwalde, Texas, that killed 19 primary school children and two teachers. Ten days earlier, 10 blacks had been shot dead at a grocery store in Buffalo. The list, Mr Biden said, continues.
“After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland – nothing has been done,” he said, complaining of decades of inaction.
In a 17-minute address, Mr Biden abruptly rejected his White House’s reluctance to get involved in what could be another fruitless guerrilla confrontation at funerals in Uwalde, Buffalo and Tulsa. After weeks of carefully calibrating his calls for action, the president did not hold back on Thursday.
“Enough enough. “It’s time for each of us to do our part,” he told Americans. “For the children we lost. We can save for the children. For the nation we love. ”
“Let’s hear the call and the shout,” he said, almost begging his fellow politicians in Washington. “Let’s meet now. Let’s finally do something. “
Whether this will happen remains unclear. Despite his strong tone, Mr Biden almost acknowledged in his speech the political realities that could turn him into another in a long line of presidents who have called for arms action only to fail. He called the battle “difficult” and moments after insisting on a ban on weapons of attack, he offered alternatives if that proved impossible.
“If we can’t ban weapons of attack, then we need to increase the age of purchase from 18 to 21, step up checks on the past,” he said. He called on Congress to “pass a law on safekeeping and red flag laws, lift the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, and tackle the mental health crisis.”
In his speech, Mr. Biden turned his apparent cynicism toward Republicans into a political threat, saying that “if Congress fails, I believe that this time the majority of the American people will not give up either. I believe that most of you will take action to turn your outrage into making this issue central to your vote. “
Mr Biden is no newcomer to the arms debate.
He has repeatedly said he supports restoring the ban on assault weapons, which he helped push through as a senator, and was a law for a decade before it expired in 2004. He called on lawmakers to pass universal scrutiny over the past decade. as 20 children were killed in a shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
But both measures are considered very unlikely to pass in Congress, where fierce Republican opposition has historically stood in their way. Lawmakers on both parties said recently that they did not believe there was enough support from both parties to approve each approach.
Democrats in the House of Representatives on Thursday unveiled a broad package of gun control legislation that would ban the sale of semi-automatic rifles to people under the age of 21 and ban the sale of cartridges containing more than 10 rounds. But even these measures were almost certain that they would die in the Senate.
Democrats have introduced legislation in response to the Uwalde killings and the racist massacre in Buffalo – both police say at the hands of 18-year-old gunmen using legally purchased AR-15-style weapons.
A bitterly divided Judicial Commission of the House of Representatives spent Thursday reviewing the legislation and approved it Thursday night in a 25 to 19 party line vote.
Representative Gerold Nadler, a New York Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Commission, warned that another shooting was not far off. He begs Republicans, “My friends, what the hell are you waiting for?”
Republicans ridicule such measures as unconstitutional attempts to confiscate weapons from law-abiding Americans, robbing them of their right to defend themselves. Representative Dan Bishop, a Republican from North Carolina, expressed outrage that Democrats portrayed Republicans as accomplices in the mass shootings, saying: “You will not harass your way to deprive Americans of fundamental rights.”
Karin Jean-Pierre, a White House spokeswoman, said administration officials had been in close contact with lawmakers over the past few days as a bipartisan group of senators discussed a narrower set of restrictions on gun ownership.
The talks are focusing on expanding past checks and providing incentives for states to pass red flag laws that allow the seizure of weapons by dangerous people. The group is also considering proposals for the safe storage of weapons at home, community violence and mental health, according to aides and senators involved in the negotiations.
As Republicans unanimously oppose most major arms control measures, Senate talks offer probably the best chance of finding a bipartisan compromise on weapons that could pass through the Senate 50 to 50, where 60 votes are needed to interrupt the filibuster and voting legislation.
But the initiative faces great difficulties, with little evidence that either side is ready to give rise to a debate that has been stalled for years.
Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut is leading the Democrat talks, joined by his party colleagues Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Kirsten Cinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Republican senators with whom they meet include Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Patrick J. Tumi of Pennsylvania, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine.
The nine negotiators met at Zoom on Wednesday to discuss their progress, meeting hour after day for one-on-one phone calls and smaller meetings with each other and their colleagues. Talks were expected to resume before the Senate returned early next week.
“We are making rapid progress towards a package of common sense that can be supported by both Republicans and Democrats,” Ms Collins said in a brief statement after the meeting.
Sen. John Cornin of Texas, a major ally of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, also took part in discussions, including Tuesday’s meeting with Mr. Murphy, Ms. Cinema, and Senator Tom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican.
Democrat leaders have warned that if an agreement cannot be reached quickly, they will force a vote in the House of Representatives that has no Republican support to show Americans which lawmakers stand in the way of adopting gun security measures. .
“I found out about the history of the failure,” Mr Blumenthal said in an interview after Wednesday’s meeting. “But if there’s ever a time to reconcile or shut up, this is it.”
In the days immediately following the Buffalo and Uwalde shootings, both the president and vice president, Kamala Harris, were largely far from any direct talks with lawmakers on how to respond to the shootings, which could take place in Congress.
But on Thursday, Mr Biden abandoned that approach, instead deciding to put up a marker that would solidify his legacy as president, fighting for tougher gun laws, successful or not.
In a speech Thursday, Mr Biden described the deep grief he felt when he and his wife spoke to the families of the victims of the two mass shootings.
“In both places, we spent hours with hundreds of broken family members whose lives will never be the same,” he said. “They had a message for all of us: Do something. Just do something. For God’s sake, do something. ”
“How many more carnage are we ready to accept?” He asked. “How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say, ‘Enough.’ That’s enough. “
And he clarified the purpose of his comment by saying that Congress must now pass the broad laws it has refused in the past.
The question now is, What will Congress do? He said. The president said he supported the Senate bipartisan group’s efforts to find a compromise, but called it the least lawmakers should do.
Thursday’s approach was more like a response from former President Barack Obama in January 2013, just weeks after the shooting at a school in Newtown.
Mr Obama, surrounded by Mr Biden, then Vice President, proposed a package of arms control measures, including: ensuring that all gun owners go through scrutiny; improving state reporting on criminals and the mentally ill; ban on assault weapons; and a clamping capacity to close the cartridge of 10 bullets.
In the face of the Republican opposition, Mr Obama has rejected his call for a ban on assault weapons and restrictions on the size of magazine clips. After months of insistence from Mr Obama and Mr Biden, the Senate has rejected bipartisan efforts to expand inspections.
In scathing comments after the death of the bill, Mr Obama ridiculed senators for deciding that children’s lives were not worth the effort to pass legislation. A decade later, the grim Mr. Obama …
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