Biden After Massacre: When Do We Defy Gun Lobby?

Created: 05/25/2022, 03:32

US President Joe Biden speaks at the White House about the shooting spree at a Texas elementary school.

© Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP/dpa

In a speech, US President Biden expressed his horror at the bloody rampage at an elementary school in Texas.

He calls for stricter gun laws.

Uvalde/Washington - After the massacre at an elementary school in the state of Texas, US President Joe Biden has called for stricter gun laws.

"As a nation, we have to ask ourselves when in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby," Biden said in the White House.

"The idea that an 18-year-old boy can walk into a gun store and buy two assault rifles is just wrong."

Since the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in Connecticut state ten years ago, there have been more than 900 incidents of reported shooting on school grounds, Biden said.

You can't prevent every tragedy with stricter gun laws - but these laws have positive effects.

According to the police, an 18-year-old attacker opened fire on Tuesday afternoon in the primary school in the small town of Uvalde.

According to US media, at least 18 children were killed.

According to initial findings, the shooter was finally killed by officials, it said.

Biden commemorates his deceased children

In his speech, Biden also remembered his son Beau, who died of cancer in 2015, and his daughter, who was killed in a car accident in 1972.

"Losing a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped out," he said.

Next to him was his wife Jill.

Biden had just returned to Washington from a trip to Asia.

US Vice President Kamala Harris also called for new political measures after the massacre.

"Enough is enough," Harris said in Washington.

"As a nation, we must have the courage to act." Measures must be taken to ensure that such crimes do not happen again, Harris said - without getting specific.

"Our hearts keep getting broken."

Senator: "Why are we here?"

US Senator Chris Murphy had previously reacted in horror to the massacre and addressed moving words to his Senate colleagues.

“What are we doing?” asked the Democrat in the US Congress.

"Why do you spend so much time running for the United States Senate?

Why bother getting this job (...) when your answer is that while this slaughter increases and our children run for their lives, we do nothing,” he asked, clearly struggling.

"Why are we here?"

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Such massacres are not inevitable.

"It only happens in this country.

And nowhere else," Murphy said.

"Nowhere else do young children go to school thinking that they might be shot that day." Murphy added, "It's our decision whether this continues."