WASHINGTON: Declaring “Enough, enough!” US President Joe Biden on Thursday urged Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other sensible gun control measures to address a string of mass shootings that have struck the United States.
Speaking from the White House, in a speech broadcast live in primetime, Biden asked a country stunned by the recent shootings of school children in Texas, at a medical building in Oklahoma and at a Buffalo, New York, grocery story how much it would take to change gun laws in America.
“For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept?” Biden asked.
The president, a Democrat, called for a number of measures historically opposed by Republicans in Congress, including banning the sale of assault weapons, or, if that were not possible, raising the minimum age to buy those weapons to 21 from 18, and repealing the liability shield that protects gun manufacturers from being sued for violence perpetrated by people carrying their guns
“We can’t fail the American people again,” Biden said, pressing Republicans to allow bills with gun control measures to come up for a vote.
The United States, which has a higher rate of gun deaths than any other wealthy nation, has been shaken in recent weeks by the high-profile mass shootings at a grocery story in upstate New York, an elementary school in Texas that killed 19 children, and a medical building in Oklahoma.
