Following a horrific shooting at a Texas elementary Uvalde school that killed at least 21 people, President Biden urged the nation on Tuesday night that it was time to “turn this pain into action” and tighten gun regulations.
“Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” he asked, his voice husky and plainly moved. “Where in God’s name is our backbone, to have the courage to deal with this and stand up to the [gun] lobbies?”
When news broke that an 18-year-old gunman had opened fire at Robb Elementary School in the small hamlet of Uvalde before being shot, the president was returning from a multi-day trip to Asia.
The massacre killed at least 19 pupils and two adults, making it the bloodiest school shooting in Texas history and the worst such atrocity in the United States since 27 people were slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.
“What struck me on that 17-hour flight, what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world,” the president said during his remarks. “Why? They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost. These kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America.”
Mr. Biden urged Congress to enact “common sense” gun laws, like as restoring the now-expired assault weapons ban he helped pass.
“The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong,” he said. “What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for but to kill someone? They’re not running in the forest with Kevlar vests on for God’s sake. It’s just sick.”
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy echoed Mr. Biden’s pleas for reform on the Senate floor.
“What are we doing?” Mr Murphy asked his Senate colleagues. “Why are you here if not to solve a problem as existential as this?”
Sen. Chris Murphy delivers remarks on Uvalde, Texas elementary school shooting: “What are we doing? What are we doing?…This only happens in this country and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day." https://t.co/Zh3OvUaIwm pic.twitter.com/TjJVoaFbRN
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 24, 2022
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