The US president, Joe Biden, again urged Congress this Sunday to ban assault rifles, after the shooting that occurred on Saturday in a Texas shopping center, in which eight people died, reports AFP.
“I again urge Congress to pass legislation banning assault rifles and heavy magazines. Implement criminal and psychiatric background checks. Require secure storage [de armas]. End immunity for gun manufacturers,” Biden urged in his statement.
“I will sign the document immediately,” the US president said, adding: “We need more action and more quickly to save lives.”
According to Biden, “too many families have empty chairs around the table” and Republican members of Congress “can no longer respond to this epidemic with a shrug of the shoulders.”
The US president said that “thoughts and prayers sent via Twitter are not enough” to defuse the situation.
On Saturday afternoon, a gunman opened fire at a mall in the Dallas, Texas, area, killing eight people and wounding several more before he was shot dead by police. According to Biden, the victims included children.
According to Allen Police Chief Brian Harvey, the shooter was “neutralized” by an officer who was at the mall.
The BNO news portal mentions that the gunman arrived by car, stopped at an H&M chain store, got out of the vehicle and immediately and indiscriminately fired at customers.
Biden had already declared today that the massacre was “a senseless act of violence” and decreed that the flags fly at half mast.
The United States, where large-scale homicides abound, has more individual weapons than people. The country has suffered at least 198 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as those in which four or more people are killed, not including the perpetrator.
According to some observers, Joe Biden’s appeal is unlikely to result in a ban on these types of weapons in Congress. Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, are fiercely opposed to such a move.
Source: TSF
