President Biden delivered a speech at the White House on Thursday calling for Congress to approve several arms control measures following a series of recent mass shootings. The following is a transcript of his statements, as reported by The New York Times.
Memorial Day, last Monday, Jill and I visited Arlington National Cemetery. As we entered those sacred lands, we saw rows and rows of crosses among the rows of tombstones and other emblems of belief, in honor of those who paid the highest price on battlefields around the world.
The day before, we visited Uvalde – Uvalde, Texas. In front of Robb Elementary School, we were in front of 21 crosses, for 19 third and fourth graders and two teachers. On each cross, a name.
And close by, a photo of each victim, which Jill and I touched. Innocent victims, murdered in a classroom that had become a murder camp. Being there in that little town, like so many other communities in America, I couldn’t help but think that there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become murder camps, battlefields, here in America.
We were in a place like this just 12 days before, in front of a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, commemorating 10 fellow Americans: a spouse, a father, a grandfather, a brother, gone forever. In both places, we spent hours with hundreds of family members who were broken and whose lives will never be the same. They had a message for all of us: Do something. Just do something. For God’s sake, do something.
After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland, nothing has been done. This time, that can’t be true. This time we have to do something. The problem we have is that of conscience and common sense.
For many of you at home, I want to be very clear. It’s not about taking up arms to anyone. It’s not about vilifying gun owners. In fact, we believe that we should treat responsible gun owners as an example of how every gun owner should behave.
I respect the culture and tradition and the concerns of the legal owners of weapons. At the same time, the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute. It was Judge Scalia who wrote, and I quote, “Like most rights, the correct second amendment: the rights granted by the second amendment are not unlimited.” Not unlimited. It never has been.
There have always been limitations on what weapons you can have in America. For example, machine guns have been federally regulated for almost 90 years, and this is still a free country. It’s not about taking away anyone’s rights. It’s about protecting children. It’s about protecting families. It’s about protecting entire communities. It’s about protecting our freedoms to go to school, to a grocery store, to a church, without being shot dead.
According to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns are the number one killer of children in the United States. Killer number 1. More than car accidents, more than cancer. Over the past two decades, more school-age children have died as a result of firearms than police officers on duty and the military active together.
Think about it. More children than gunmen killed by guns. More children than soldiers killed by guns. For God’s sake. How many more butchers are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives should be taken before enough is said? Enough.
I know we can’t avoid all tragedies, but that’s what I think we need to do. This is what the overwhelming majority of the American people believe we should do. That’s what the families in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, told us to do.
We must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, we should raise the age to buy them from 18 to 21 years old. Strengthen background checks, enact safe storage laws, and “red flag” laws. Revokes immunity that protects weapons manufacturers from liability. Address the mental health crisis that is deepening in the trauma of armed violence, and as a consequence of such violence.
These are rational and common sense measures. This is what all this means. All this means: we should reinstate the ban on assault weapons in high-capacity magazines that we passed in 1994 with bipartisan support in Congress and the support of law enforcement.
Nine categories of semi-automatic weapons were included in this ban, such as the AK-47 and AR-15. And in the 10 years that it was law, the mass shootings went down. But after Republicans allowed the law to expire in 2004 and these weapons were allowed to be resold, shootings tripled. These are the facts.
A few years ago, the family of the inventor of the AR-15 said he would have been horrified to learn that its design was used to kill children and other innocent lives instead of being used as a military weapon in the camps. battle, as it was designed. That’s why it was designed.
Enough, enough. We should limit how many cartridges a gun can hold. Why, in the name of God, should a normal citizen be able to buy an assault weapon containing 30 cartridge magazines that allow mass shooters to fire hundreds of bullets in minutes? The damage was so devastating that Uvalde’s parents had to make DNA swabs to identify their children’s remains. Children nine and 10 years old.
Enough. We should expand background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, fugitives and those under restraining orders. The vast majority of Americans, including most gun owners, agree on more rigorous background checks.
I also think we should have safe storage laws and personal responsibility for not closing the gun. Sandy Hook’s shooter came from a house full of weapons. They were too easy to access. That’s how he got his weapons. The weapon he used to kill his mother, and then murder 26 people, including 20 first graders.
If you have a weapon, it is your responsibility to protect it. All responsible gun owners agree. To make sure no one else has access to it. To close it. Have trigger locks. And if you don’t, and something bad happens, you have to be responsible.
We should also have red flag national laws so that a parent, teacher, or counselor can point out in court that a child, student, or patient is showing violent tendencies, threatening peers, or experiencing suicidal thoughts; this makes them a danger to themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have red flag laws. Delaware law is named after my son, Attorney General Beau Biden.
Fort Hood, Texas, 2009. Thirteen dead and more than 30 wounded. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, 2018. Seventeen dead, 17 injured. In both places, countless others suffer invisible wounds. Red flag laws could have stopped these two shooters.
In Uvalde, the shooter was 17 when he asked his sister to buy him an assault weapon, knowing that he would refuse because he was too young to buy one himself. She refused. But as soon as he turned 18, he bought two assault weapons for himself. Because in Texas you can be 18 and buy an assault weapon, even though in Texas you can’t buy a gun until you’re 21.
If we can’t ban assault weapons, as we should, we should at least raise the age to buy one up to the age of 21. Look, I know there are people who will say that 18-year-olds can serve in the military and fire them. weapons, but this is with the training and supervision of the best trained experts in the world. Don’t tell me raising your age won’t make a difference. Enough.
We should repeal the shield of responsibility that often protects gun manufacturers from being sued for the death and destruction caused by their weapons. They are the only industry in this country that has this kind of immunity.
Imagine. Imagine if the tobacco industry were immune to being sued, where would we be today. The special protections of the arms industry are outrageous. It has to end.
And make no mistake about the psychological trauma that armed violence leaves behind. Imagine being that girl, that brave girl from Uvalde, who smeared blood on the body of her murdered friend in her face, to stand still among the corpses in her classroom and pretend she was dead to stay alive. Imagine. Imagine what it would be like for her to walk down the aisle of any school again.
Imagine how children experience this kind of trauma every day at school, on the streets, in communities across America. Imagine for a second you were transposed into the karmic driven world of Earl. Unfortunately, too many people should not imagine it at all.
Even before the pandemic, young people were already suffering. There is a serious crisis of youth mental health in this country. We need to do something about it. That is why mental health is at the heart of my unity agenda, which I set out in this year’s State of the Union address.
We need to provide more school counselors; more school nurses; more mental health services for students and teachers. More people are volunteering to help young people succeed. More privacy protection and resources to protect children from social media harm.
This agenda of unity will not completely heal wounded souls, but it will help. It is important.
I just told you what to do. The question now is, what will Congress do?
The House of Representatives has already passed key measures we need: expanding background checks to cover almost all arms sales, including arms samples and online sales. Get rid of a loophole that allows the sale of weapons to take place after three business days, even if the background check has not been completed.
And the House plans even more action next week. Secure storage requirements. The ban on high-capacity magazines. Raising the age to buy an assault weapon at 21 years old. Federal Red Flag Act ….