Speaking from the White House barely an hour after the Texas shootings, Biden called for action and blamed gun manufacturers and their supporters for blocking targeted legislation.
United States president Joe Biden made an emotional appeal to curb America’s gun culture Tuesday night after a gunman – a teenage boy – shot and killed 19 children at a Texas elementary school. The horrific incident – the deadliest shooting at a US school since 20 children and six adults were gunned down at Sandy Hook almost a decade ago – has once again put the spotlight on weak gun control laws in the US and the powerful lobbyists who fight any effort to check sales of weapons. Speaking from the White House barely an hour after the Texas shootings, Biden called for action and blamed gun manufacturers and their supporters for blocking targeted legislation.
5 big quotes by Joe Biden on Texas school shooting and gun control laws:
> “When we passed the Assault Weapons Ban (in 1994), mass shootings went down. When the law expired [in 2004], mass shootings tripled. The idea an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy assault weapons… it is just wrong.”
READ: Texas school shooting | Biden, Obama hit out at ‘gun lobby’
> “We have to act (referring to members of Congress) it is time for those who have struck or delayed or blocked the common-sense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget.”
> “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There’s a hollowness in your chest you feel like you’re being sucked into it … you’re never quite the same”.
> “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby. Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”
> “These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world (referring to other nations, like the United Kingdom, that do not have this level gun violence). Why?”
With input from AP
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Texas mass shooting: ‘Since 2009… 274 shootings, 1,536 killed,’ says US group
Biden, Obama hit out at ‘gun lobby’: ‘our country is paralyzed’ MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL, February 2018 An attack left 14 students and three staff members dead at the school in Parkland, Florida, and injured many others. SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, December 2012 A 19-year-old man killed his mother at their home in Newtown, Connecticut, then went to the nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 first graders and six educators.
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