At a White House event intended to celebrate the recent passage of the bipartisan gun billPresident Biden on Monday renewed his push for a new assault weapons ban and also called for legislation to ensure the safe storage of firearms.
“Assault weapons must be banned,” Biden said on the South Lawn at a gathering of lawmakers and family members of mass shooting victims. “I’m not going to stop until we do.”
“We should have safe storage laws that require personal liability for not locking up your gun,” the president continued, noting that the gunman who killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, came from a home “full of people”. of pistols and assault weapons that were too easily accessible.”
“If you own a gun, you have a responsibility to secure it and keep it locked up,” Biden said. “Responsible gun owners agree: no one else should have access to them, so keep them locked up.”
Earlier in his remarks, Biden praised members of Congress, including Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who worked to pass the bipartisan Safer Communities Act following the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New YorkY Uvalde, Texasand before the massacre in Highland Park, IL.July 4.
The legislation, which Biden signed into law last month, includes $13 billion to bolster mental health programs and school safety, crisis intervention and closes the so-called boyfriend loophole, under which single people convicted of domestic abuse could still get guns.
“Because of your work, your advocacy, your courage, lives will be saved today and tomorrow because of this,” Biden said.
But the new package does not include many of the tougher restrictions advocates had called for, including a ban on AR-15-style rifles, raising the purchase age for such weapons to 21, or background checks for all guns. arms deals.
The president acknowledged that “we have more to do” and described the new measures as progress.
“Now we have an opportunity to do much more,” Biden said. “Now is the time to galvanize this movement. That’s what we owe to those families in Buffalo, where a grocery store was turned into a killing field. It is what we owe to those families in Uvalde, where an elementary school became an extermination camp. That’s what we owe to those families in Highland Park, where a July 4th parade turned into a killing field.”
“Will we combine thoughts and prayers with action?” added the president. “I say yes. And that’s what we’re doing here today.”
Biden’s speech was briefly interrupted by a troublemaker, later identified as activist manuel oliverwho apparently felt that the new legislation did not go far enough.
“We’ve heard this before,” Oliver could be heard saying.
Oliver’s son, Joaquin, was killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
In February, on the fourth anniversary of the massacre, Oliver was arrested in Washington DC for climbing a crane near the White House.
Before his arrest, Oliver tweeted a video from the top of the crane complaining that Biden denied their meeting requests late last year.