Washington –
Regretting an all-American tragedy, a distressed and angry U.S. President Joe Biden called for urgent gun restrictions on Tuesday night after a gunman shot dead 19 children at a school Texas Primary.
Biden spoke from the White House just an hour after returning from a five-day trip to Asia that was chained by mass shootings in the United States. He called for action to address armed violence after years of failure, and bitterly blamed gun manufacturers and their supporters. to block legislation in Washington.
“When in God’s name will we face the lobby of arms?” Biden said excitedly. “Why are we willing to live with this butchery? Why are we still letting this happen?”
With First Lady Jill Biden at his side in the Roosevelt Room, the president, who has suffered the loss of two of his own children, though not by armed violence, spoke in visceral terms about the grief of the victims’ loved ones. and the pain that will last for the students who survived.
“Losing a child is like having a piece of your soul torn apart,” Biden said. “There’s a hole in your chest. You feel like you’re being sucked in and you can never get out.”
He called on the nation to keep the victims and their families in prayer, but also to work harder to prevent the impending tragedy: “It is time to turn this pain into action,” he said.
At least 19 students and two adults were killed at Robb Elementary School in the very Latin city of Uvalde, Texas, according to local officials. The gunman died after being shot by officers who responded, local police said.
It was only a week before Biden, on the eve of his trip abroad, traveled to Buffalo to reunite with the families of the victims after a racist and hateful shooter killed 10 blacks in a shop. groceries in Buffalo, New York.
Consecutive tragedies served as reminders of the frequency and brutality of an American epidemic of mass armed violence.
“Such mass shootings rarely occur anywhere else in the world,” Biden said, reflecting that other nations have people full of hatred or mental health problems, but no other industrialized nation experiences armed violence at the U.S. level. .
“Because?” he asked.
It was too early to say whether the latest violent outbreak could break the political stalemate surrounding the tightening of the nation’s gun laws, after so many others, including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. of Newtown, Connecticut, which killed 26, including 20 children have failed.
“The idea of an 18-year-old boy being able to walk into a gun shop and buy two assault weapons is wrong,” Biden said. He has previously called for a ban on assault-style weapons, as well as stricter federal background check requirements and “red-flag” laws aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of those with mental health problems.
Last Tuesday, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer launched possible actions on two bills passed by the House to expand the background checks required for the purchase of weapons, but no has scheduled no voting.
Biden was sad 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 “all the help he needed,” the White House said. He ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-mast until Saturday evening 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 televisions.
“I was hoping that when I became president I wouldn’t have to do that again,” he said. “Another massacre.”
In a compelling reminder of the division of the issue, Biden’s call for gun action was booed at a campaign event in Georgia hosted by Herschel Walker, which won the Republican nomination to the United States Senate.
Speaking at an Asia-Pacific event to celebrate Biden’s trip to Asia, Vice President Kamala Harris said earlier that people usually declare at times like this: “Our hearts are broken, but our hearts are broken. they are still breaking … and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of these families. “
“We have to have the courage to act … to ensure that something like this never happens again,” he said.
Echoing Biden’s call, former US President Barack Obama, who described the day of the Sandy Hook shooting as the darkest in his administration, said: “It’s been a long time since action, any kind of action “.
“Michelle and I are grieving with Uvalde’s families, who are in pain that no one should have to endure,” she said in a statement. “We are angry with them too. Almost 10 years after Sandy Hook – and ten days after Buffalo – our country is paralyzed, not by fear, but by a gun lobby and a political party that has not shown the will to act in any way that can help prevent these tragedies. “
Congress has failed to pass substantial legislation on armed violence since the bipartisan effort to bolster background checks on gun purchases collapsed after the 2012 shooting.
Despite months of work, a bill that was backed by a majority of senators fell into a deadlock, unable to exceed the 60-vote threshold needed to move forward.
In a heartfelt statement in the Senate on Tuesday, Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy, who represented Newton, Connecticut in the House at the time of the Sandy Hook massacre, asked his colleagues why and they all bother to run for office You will stand idly by.
“I’m here on this floor to beg, literally to get on my knees, to beg my classmates,” he said.
Murphy said he planned to contact Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn after the two had joined in a previous background check bill that never became law. He said he would also contact Texas’ other Republican senator, Ted Cruz.
“I don’t understand why people here think we’re powerless,” Murphy said. “We are not.”
Cornyn told reporters she was on her way to Texas and would talk to them later. Cruz issued a statement saying “it’s a dark day. We’re all completely sick and heartbroken.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., who sponsored gun legislation that failed to overcome a Senate obstruction after Sandy Hook, said, “We’re just pressuring people who just don’t move.”
“It makes no sense why we can’t do common sense things and try to prevent that from happening,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Michael Balsamo, Alan Fram and Farnoush Amiri contributed.
President Biden has just spoken with Governor Abbott to offer him all the help he needs after the horrific shooting in Uvalde, TX. pic.twitter.com/u3yMHFtcJJ
– Kate Bedingfield (@WHCommsDir) May 24, 2022