The Second Amendment, according to President Biden, “is not absolute” during a rare, prime-time address on the recent spate of deadly shootings.
“I respect the culture and the tradition and the concerns of lawful gun owners”, stated Biden from the White House. “At the same time, the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute.”
“We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Biden said. “And if we can’t ban assault weapons then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21.”
Rather than remaining to twist legislators’ arms, Biden intended to go right away to his beach house in Delaware for an extended holiday.
Biden announced a slate of bills during his 17-minute address, including one to tackle the country’s “mental health crisis,” which may appeal to Republican lawmakers.
“There’s a serious youth mental health crisis in this country we have to do something about,” he stated.
“That’s why mental health is at the heart of my unity agenda that I laid out in the State of Union address. We must provide more school counselors, more school nurses, more mental health services for students and for teachers. More people volunteering as mentors to help young people succeed.”
Biden also took aim at GOP, saying, “My God, the fact that the majority of the Senate Republicans don’t want any of these proposals even to be debated or come up for a vote, I find unconscionable.”
“You can’t fail the American people again,” he stated.
“I want to be very clear this is not about taking away anyone’s guns,” Biden insisted, saying that his proposals were “not about vilifying gun owners.”
“In fact, we believe we should be treating responsible gun owners as an example of how every gun owner should behave,” he added.
He promised, “I’ll never give up” on new gun-control measures and that if Congress doesn’t go along, “I believe this time a majority of American people won’t give up either.”
“I believe the majority of you will act to turn your outrage and to making this issue central to your vote,” he continued.
“Enough. Enough. Enough.”
In addition, Biden said he would like to “strengthen background checks and enact safe-storage laws and red flag laws.”
“We should also have national red flag laws so that a parent, a teacher, a counselor can flag for a court that a child, a student, a patient is exhibiting violent tendencies, threatening classmates or experiencing suicidal thoughts that makes them a danger to themselves or to others,” he added.
Biden has attributed an alleged reduction in the rate of mass shootings to a 10-year federal ban on assault weapons that began in 1994 and ended in 2004
“Nine categories of semiautomatic weapons were included in that ban, like AK-47s and AR-15s. And in the 10 years it was law, mass shootings went down,” he said.
“After Republicans let the law expire in 2004 and those weapons were allowed to be sold again, mass shootings tripled. Those are the facts.”
There’s no doubt that the prevalence of assault weapons has increased in recent years, but according to a study published last week by The New York Times, there isn’t enough evidence yet to determine if their use is causing more people to be shot. According to a National Research Council report from 2015, “It’s clear that there is an association between weapon features, most notably ammunition capacity, and how many people are shot in these incidents.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters at a news conference Thursday afternoon that President Biden will address “to the American public directly.”
“Tonight, you’ll hear from him,” Jean-Pierre said on her briefing.
“It’ll be basically making sure that he’s still — his voice is out there and calling to action and making sure that, you know, the American people know that he’s still continuing to speak on their behalf and making sure that, you know, we get some action taken.”
She went on to deny that the president is personally involved in discussions regarding bills to “give it some time” to mature, however.
Biden’s efforts to persuade Congress to back his bills have yielded limited success.
The White House said Biden’s remarks would focus on the “need for Congress to act to pass common sense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is taking lives every day.”
Following the mass murder of 19 children and two educators at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week, Biden delivered a brief prime-time address during which he emotionally blamed the “gun lobby.”
Lawmakers in the Senate are engaged in a heated discussion regarding potential legislation prompted by the Uvalde shooting, and members of the House Judiciary Committee held a special hearing Thursday on legislation that would lift the age requirement for purchasing semiautomatic weapons from 18 to 21.
The House’s bill, which is expected to go through the House as soon as next week, would also prohibit the manufacture and possession of large-capacity magazines.
Due to near-unanimous Republican opposition, it’s doubtful that it will pass the Senate in its current form.
Salvador Ramos, 18, used a legally obtained AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle to perpetrate the Uvalde Massacre. A US Border Patrol tactical team shot and killed Ramos after responding to the large gun fire.
It came 10 days after a yet another 18-year-old, Payton Gendron, allegedly used an AR-15 he purchased legally to murder ten black customers at a Buffalo grocery store and post a white supremacist screed.
A more modest bill to raise the age for purchasing an AR-15 could gain broad bipartisan support.
The Republicans argue that several Democratic ideas — including licensing all private gun sales and restricting 9mm pistol access — would not pass constitutional review or prevent mass shootings.
“We need to get serious about understanding why this keeps happening. Democrats are always fixated on curtailing the rights of law-abiding citizens rather than trying to understand why this evil happens,” stated Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
“Until we figure out the why, we will always mourn losses without facing the problem. Our job is to figure out the why.”
Federal gun control is a mixed bag, consisting of numerous other aspects. Because the Congress rarely passes legislation on this issue, most federal changes come through regulation.
Last month, Biden said his administration would push for a federal regulation to prohibit “ghost gun” kits. To close a loophole that allows businesses to sell most AR-15 gun parts without a federal background check, along with a partially completed “lower receiver” part that buyers can assemble at home, Biden proposed restricting the sale of components kits.
After the use of a “bump stock” to increase the rate of fire on semiautomatic rifles killed 60 people at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas in 2017, the Trump administration banned “bump stocks” in 2018.
