Biden: “We can do it again,” he said on the ban on the sale of semi-automatic weapons

“We can do it again.” US President Joe Biden on Wednesday once again vowed to ban assault rifles in a speech during a memorial service for victims of mass shootings, 10 years after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Recalling that the US had banned semi-automatic weapons from 1994 to 2004, the US president said: “It worked”, “a significant number of lives were saved”.

“We can do it again,” said Biden, 80, who participated in the 10th annual National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Washington.

Biden pointed out that he, too, has experienced bereavement — the death of his first wife and daughter in December 1972, then the death of his grown son Beau in May 2015 — and described how he has in the past, the feeling of “a black hole in the chest”.

After expressing his admiration for the parents and friends of the victims, as well as the survivors, he asked those present to observe a minute’s silence.

Almost every day in the US there are gun attacks in various public places, from schools to places of worship and supermarkets.

According to the Gun Violence Archive website, more mass shootings — in which at least four people have been injured or killed — have been recorded since the beginning of the year in the US.

The majority of congressional Republicans and the powerful NRA gun lobby oppose any legislation that would actually restrict gun ownership, arguing that doing so would be contrary to the US Constitution.

Twenty-six people, including 20 children ages 6 to 7, were killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012.

RES-EMP

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