WASHINGTON ( Associated Press) – President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the United States should “feel social guilt” for taking slow action to restrict access to firearms on the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. ,
Twenty students and six teachers were killed in the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, an event that shocked the nation. Biden used the anniversary to reiterate his call for a ban on assault weapons used at Sandy Hook and high-capacity magazines.
“We should feel a sense of societal guilt for taking so long to resolve this issue,” Biden said in a statement. “We have a moral obligation to pass and enforce laws that prevent these things from happening again. We owe it to the brave young survivors and families who lost part of their soul ten years ago , to turn their grief into action.”
Biden, who was vice president at the time of the massacre, was ordered by then-President Barack Obama to lead efforts to tighten gun laws, but was unsuccessful. He said he and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, are praying for the victims and their families.
It was only in the middle of this year, after the May shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that Congress passed the first reform in decades to ban so-called “ghost guns,” which have no serial numbers. Biden’s calls for more aggressive measures, such as banning assault weapons, have been met with strong opposition in Congress.
Biden said, ‘Enough is enough. “Our obligation is clear. We have to eliminate these weapons which have no other purpose than to kill large numbers of people. We can do this, not only for the innocent people lost, but also for the survivors who still have hope.”
