Biden calls for stricter arms sales in the US
On Sunday, US President Joe Biden called on Congress to take “immediate” action to limit the circulation of firearms in American society. He made the call to commemorate a shooting in a Florida high school, where exactly three years ago, seventeen people were shot dead by an ex-student.
“This administration will not wait for the next shooting” to answer calls to action, the US president said. ‘I call on Congress to enact common-sense reforms on weapons,’ he said.
Biden advocates, among other things, a mandatory background investigation of buyers and a ban on the sale of assault weapons and extra-large warehouses. He also works to end “the inviolability of arms manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets”.
On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old young man opened fire at a high school in Parkland, in the southeastern state of Florida. He killed seventeen people before he could be apprehended.
He had been thrown out of the school a year earlier for “disciplinary reasons” and was able to legally obtain a semi-automatic weapon even though he had a history of working in psychiatry.
The shooting led to large demonstrations against gun violence, with calls to tighten gun sales. Then-President Donald Trump refused to ban the sale of assault weapons. He did suggest, however, that teachers, for example, should be given a gun.
