Joe Biden again pleads for limits on assault weapons after US mass shootings
- Joe Biden urged Congress to ban assault weapons and implement other gun control measures
- The United States has been shaken in recent weeks by the high-profile mass shootings
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‘We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines’, US president tells lawmakers
US President Joe Biden called for a ban on sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, pleading with Congress to toughen gun laws following a spate of mass shootings.
“We need to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines,” Biden said in an evening address from the White House on Thursday.
But he acknowledged that Congress is unlikely to ban the weapons, adding: “We should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen background checks, enact safe storage laws and red-flag laws, repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, address the mental health crisis deepening the trauma of gun violence”.
Recalling recent meetings with families of shooting victims in Texas and Buffalo, Biden said: “They had one message for all of us: Do something. Just do something. For God’s sake, do something”.
It was the president’s second prime-time address from the White House in as many weeks on the topic of gun violence, as he tries to drum up momentum for changes to gun laws after a grisly series of deadly mass shootings that have dominated headlines and sparked national outrage.
Last week, an 18-year-old man killed 19 children and two teachers at a junior school in Texas, and on Wednesday, a man killed two doctors, a staff member and a patient at a medical office in Oklahoma with a semi-automatic military-style rifle.