By ZEKE MILLER and CHRIS MEGERIAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lamenting a uniquely American tragedy, an anguished and offended President Joe Biden delivered an pressing name for brand spanking new restrictions on firearms after a gunman shot and killed at the least 19 kids at a Texas elementary college.
Biden spoke Tuesday evening from the White House barely an hour after coming back from a five-day journey to Asia that was bracketed by mass shootings within the U.S. He pleaded for motion to deal with gun violence after years of failure — and bitterly blamed firearm producers and their supporters for blocking laws in Washington.
‘“When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden stated with emotion. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”
With first woman Jill Biden standing by his aspect within the Roosevelt Room, the president, who has suffered the lack of two of his personal kids — although to not gun violence — spoke in visceral phrases concerning the grief of the family members of the victims and the ache that can endure for the scholars who survived.
“To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away,” Biden stated. “There’s a hollowness in your chest. You feel like you’re being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out.”
He known as on the nation to carry the victims and households in prayer — but additionally to work more durable to stop the subsequent tragedy, “It’s time we turned this pain into action,” he stated.
At least 19 college students have been killed at Robb Elementary School within the closely Latino city of Uvalde, Texas, based on native officers. The loss of life toll additionally included two adults. The gunman died after being shot by responding officers, native police stated.
It was only a week earlier that Biden, on the eve of his abroad journey, traveled to Buffalo to satisfy with victims’ households after a racist, hate-filled shooter killed 10 Black individuals at a grocery retailer in Buffalo, New York.
The back-to-back tragedies served as sobering reminders of the frequency and brutality of an American epidemic of mass gun violence.
“These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world,” Biden stated, reflecting that different nations have individuals full of hate or with psychological well being points however no different industrialized nation experiences gun violence on the stage of the U.S.
“Why?” he requested.
It was a lot too early to inform if the most recent violent outbreak might break the political logjam round tightening the nation’s gun legal guidelines, after so many others — together with the 2012 capturing at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 26, together with 20 kids — have failed.
“The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong,” Biden stated. He has beforehand known as for a ban on assault-style weapons, in addition to harder federal background examine necessities and “red flag” legal guidelines that are supposed to preserve weapons out of the arms of these with psychological well being issues.
Late Tuesday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer set in movement potential motion on two House-passed payments to increase federally required background checks for gun purchases, however no votes have been scheduled.
Biden was somber when he returned to the White House, having been briefed on the capturing on Air Force One. Shortly earlier than touchdown in Washington, he spoke with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and supplied “any and all assistance” wanted, the White House stated. He directed that American flags be flown at half-staff by sundown Saturday in honor of the victims in Texas.
His aides, a few of whom had simply returned from Asia with the president, gathered to observe Biden’s speech on televisions within the West Wing.
“I’d hoped when I became president I would not have to do this, again,” he stated. “Another massacre.”
In a stark reminder of the problem’s divisiveness, Biden’s name for gun measures was booed at a marketing campaign occasion in Georgia hosted by Herschel Walker, who received the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.
Speaking at an Asian Pacific American occasion that was meant to rejoice Biden’s Asia journey, Vice President Kamala Harris stated earlier that folks usually declare in moments like this, “our hearts break — but our hearts keep getting broken … and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families.”
“We have to have the courage to take action … to ensure something like this never happens again,” she stated.
Echoing Biden’s name, former President Barack Obama, who has known as the day of the Sandy Hook capturing the darkest of his administration, stated, “It’s long past time for action, any kind of action.”
“Michelle and I grieve with the families in Uvalde, who are experiencing pain no one should have to bear,” he stated in a press release. “We’re also angry for them. Nearly ten 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 have shown no willingness to act in any way that might help prevent these tragedies.”
Congress has been unable to go substantial gun violence laws ever for the reason that bipartisan effort to strengthen background checks on firearm purchases collapsed within the aftermath of the 2012 capturing.
Despite months of labor, a invoice that was backed by a majority of senators, fell to a filibuster — unable to to beat the 60-vote threshold wanted to advance.
In impassioned remarks on the Senate flooring Tuesday, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who represented Newton, Connecticut, within the House on the time of the Sandy Hook bloodbath, requested his colleagues why they even trouble operating for workplace in the event that they’re going to face by and do nothing.
“I’m here on this floor to beg — to literally get down on my hands and knees — to beg my colleagues,” he stated.
Murphy stated he was planning to succeed in out to Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn after the 2 had teamed on an earlier background examine invoice that by no means grew to become legislation. He stated he would additionally attain out to Texas’ different Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
“I just don’t understand why people here think we’re powerless,” Murphy stated. “We aren’t.”
Cornyn informed reporters he was on his approach to Texas and would speak with them later. Cruz issued a press release calling it “a dark day. We’re all completely sickened and heartbroken.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who sponsored gun laws that failed to beat a filibuster within the Senate after Sandy Hook, stated, “We’re just pushing on people who just won’t budge on anything.”
“It makes no sense at all why we can’t do commonsense things and try to prevent some of this from happening,” he stated.
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Michael Balsamo, Alan Fram and Farnoush Amiri contributed.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”