When a gunman stormed a Connecticut elementary school nearly a decade ago, killing 20 young children, Americans were horrified.
The Sandy Hook massacre sparked a call for the United States to finally push for stricter gun laws, and many feared that if the loss of 20 children was not enough to spur action, nothing would happen.
And yet, 10 years later, the country is in the same position.
For the families of the 19 third- and fourth-graders and two teachers killed at Robb Elementary School in Texas, the suffering is unimaginable.
And a well-known wave of pain and rage sweeps across the country.
U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to “turn this pain into action,” and urged lawmakers to find the “courage” to confront the nation’s arms lobby.
But the same divisions that emerge after each mass shooting are already being shown.
An 18-year-old man broke into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and opened fire. (Reuters: Marco Bello)
This is not the first time Biden has tried to deal with armed violence
Americans know the empty ritual that follows the news of a mass shooting.
Wall-to-wall media coverage is marked by a flurry of elaborate statements by politicians who share “thoughts and prayers” before moving on to deviation and inaction.
After Sandy Hook, President Barack Obama turned then-Vice President Joe Biden into the key person on gun reform.
His team eventually proposed 23 powerful executive actions, asking Congress to legislate to ensure stricter background checks, improved weapons security technology, and more.
In a rare bipartisan effort, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Republican Sen. Pat Toomey led a bill to extend background checks to most arms sales.
As Barack Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden worked with the survivor of the shooting, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, to try to pass gun reform laws. (Reuters: Larry Downing)
The vice president saw with his former partner Gabrielle Giffords, who two years earlier had survived a head-shot by a disgruntled voter, how the bill had six votes left to be debated in the Senate.
However, he rationalized that at least such a shocking political failure would surely galvanize the public to force real change.
But that has not happened.
“I had hoped that when I became president, I would not have to do this again,” President Biden said in a televised national speech.
“Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school.”
There have already been 27 school shootings that resulted in injuries or deaths in 2022, among more mass shootings than there have been days a year.
At least 17,000 people have been killed so far, including 10 shoppers who were shot dead in a racially motivated attack on a Buffalo supermarket less than a fortnight ago.
After each Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Buffalo or Uvalde, public support for gun law reform increases.
It has been almost 10 years since the Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 children died. (Reuters: Addresses Latif)
However, American citizens, like the politicians they choose, remain divided on the way forward.
The vast majority believe that armed violence is a problem, but only a little over half, 53%, want stricter laws to deal with it, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.
These views are also supported by profound ideological differences.
While 73% of Democrats say making it more difficult to legally obtain weapons would result in fewer mass shootings, only 20% of Republicans agree.
This division is reflected in Congress, even for specific measures with broad public support.
The latest federal attempt to introduce a universal background check bill, HR8, passed the Democrat-controlled House in 2019 and again in 2021, but has twice failed to get a vote in the Senate.
What options does Biden have?
In the hours following the Texas shooting, NBA coach Steve Kerr used what would have been a pre-match press conference to criticize the Senate’s inaction on the background check bill.
“I’m so tired of going up here and offering my condolences to the devastated families out there,” he said from Dallas, Texas, a few hundred miles from where the attack took place.
“I’m so tired of the excuse, so tired of the moments of silence. Enough.”
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That sentiment was echoed in the Senate, where Democrat Chris Murphy, who used to represent the district that includes Sandy Hook, called for action.
“I’m here on this floor to beg, literally to get on my knees and knees and beg my classmates: Find a way forward,” he said.
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The blocked Senate means Democrats would need the support of at least 10 Republicans to overcome an obstruction and move forward with arms control measures.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested it made no sense to try to get them to speak immediately, arguing that there was only a “poor prospect” of agreement.
So far no one was able to send in the perfect solution, which is not strange.
“You see Democrats and a lot of people in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
“It does not prevent crime.”
Senator Cruz then argued that the “most effective tool” was armed law enforcement on school campuses, while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called for the disarmament of school staff.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suggested “mental health” was the most pressing issue.
“What’s the matter here?” he said he asked local police and Uvalde government officials.
“And they were direct and emphatic: they said we have a problem with mental illness in this community.”
Outside of Congress, President Biden has used his executive powers to introduce regulations that crack down on “ghost weapons”: privately made weapons, which are difficult to locate due to a lack of serial numbers.
He also spoke about the use of “smart gun” technology, which requires a lot of fingerprints or facial recognition before use, to reduce the chances of children picking up their parents’ weapons and casualties by stolen weapons.
A more significant reform, such as the reintroduction of an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004, would require congressional support.
And that means overcoming the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA).
It is estimated that there are more firearms in the United States than people. (Reuters: Addresses Latif)
When will America face its arms lobby?
During his emotional speech after the Robb Elementary School shooting, President Biden asked, “When, in God’s name, will we face the gun lobby?”
However, the NRA is no longer the financial, political and cultural power it had been for decades.
The special interest group cannot afford to continue channeling millions of dollars into the US political system, after secretly declaring bankruptcy in 2021 amid an investigation into corruption.
And its membership is declining.
Still, the steady pace of gun safety messages, as well as the politicians he paid to help install them, such as Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, mean that their impact is will maintain.
Former President Donald Trump, along with Senator Cruz and Gov. Abbott, were due to speak at the NRA’s annual meeting later this week.
The National Rifle Association has donated millions to the campaigns of Republican politicians, including former President Donald Trump. (AP: Evan Vucci)
Weapons are intertwined closely in the fabric of the founding traditions of America, through hunting, a revolutionary war, and a reverence for rugged individualism.
However, a version of the “constitutional right to bear arms” is increasingly fundamental to the political identities of many Americans.
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According to Pew, the number of Republicans who say it is more important to protect the rights of gun owners than to regulate weapons increased from 38% to 80% between 2000 and 2019.
Another American-only tragedy
Decades of debate with little action, even after the most heinous mass shootings, have left little hope that this tragedy will be any different.
However, as a father who has buried two of his own children, President Biden insists he is not ready to surrender.
“Losing a child is like breaking a piece of your soul,” he said.
“There’s a gap in your chest, and you feel like you’re being sucked in and you’ll never get out of it. It’s stifling. And it’s never the same.”
After returning from a trip to Asia for the Quad Rally, Biden called for an end to the “carnage.”
“And what struck me about that 17-hour flight … was that these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world,” he said.
“Why? They have mental health issues. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who have been lost. But these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency that happens in America. Why?”
Posted 1 h 1 hours agoDmec. May 25, 2022 at 8:12 pm, updated 1 hour ago 1 hour ago Wed. May 25, 2022 at 8:26 p.m.