President Joe Biden on Thursday evening urged federal action to curb gun violence while outlining a list of policies he supports.
After Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Las Vegas, nothing has been done, according to Biden. That's not true this time. We need to do something this time.
Biden dug into the details of the policies he would support. He said that gun owners should be required to safely store their firearms, that a federal "red flag" law should be repealed, and that the liability protections for gun manufacturers should be removed.
Lawmakers can't fail to act, that's what the president said. Are we willing to accept more carnage? Biden asked a few times.
Biden said this is about protecting children, families, and communities. It's about protecting our right to go to school, grocery store, and church without being killed.
Biden wants a federal assault weapons ban that includes a limit on high-capacity magazines. He re-upped his push for raising the age that anyone can legally purchase a gun after acknowledging that a renewed ban might fail.
There have been a lot of mass shootings in the US recently. A group of black people were targeted by a group of white people. Nineteen elementary school students and two teachers were shot to death in Uvalde, Texas. At least four people were killed when a man opened fire on a hospital in Oklahoma.
Democrats pushed for federal action after the Buffalo and Uvalde shooting. While acknowledging that previous tragedies have failed to spur Congress to act, top Democrats are cautiously optimistic about the talks.
Lawmakers were left to figure out a path forward after Biden left it to him. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who has made passing gun legislation one of the focuses of his career, has led his party's talks with Republican senators.
Biden supports those talks, but he's not happy with the Republican Party's stance on gun control.
He said that the majority of the Senate Republicans don't want a majority of the proposals to be debated or voted on.
The president made Biden the point person on the federal response to the Sandy Hook shooting. A bill to expand background checks failed on the Senate floor months later and was a stinging defeat for Obama. Four Democrats opposed the legislation, which made their struggles worse.
During the primary season, Biden bragged about his role in passing a 1994 crime bill that included an assault weapons ban. There isn't much chance that Congress will pass the ban again.
Red flag laws allow for the seizure of a person's firearms if they pose an immediate threat to themselves or others. Republicans Insider previously spoke to the Capitol and said that it should be left to individual states to act. Some red flag laws have been opposed by conservatives and gun rights groups due to the lack of due process protections.
It would take 60 votes in the Senate to approve a new law. Democrats need at least 10 Republicans to support any measure.
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