US President Joe Biden has called on Congress to enact more sensible reforms to the gun laws of the country. This statement was made on Sunday in reference to the school shooting that occurred in Parkland, Florida three years ago.
“This administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call,” Biden said in a statement marking Valentine’s Day shooting in 2018 that left 17 people dead and brought fresh attention to America’s slack gun laws.
“We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer.”
Biden said he wants Congress to pass laws that would require background checks on all gun sales and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
The confessed school shooter, Nikolas Cruz, who was 19 at the time, was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and fired between 100 and 150 rounds in a rampage that killed 14 students and three adult staff at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Biden said Congress must also eliminate “immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.”
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Cruz was able to buy the assault rifle legally, despite having known mental health problems.
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Even in a country that has grown accustomed to mass shootings and gun violence, the Florida shooting sparked outrage across the US and prompted fresh demands for firearms control.
But with Donald Trump in the White House and the Republicans controlling the Senate at the time, legislation efforts by the Democrats in the House of Representatives were made in futility.
Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday has now said that the House would try again.
“We will enact these and other life-saving bills and deliver the progress that the Parkland community and the American people deserve and demand,” she said in a statement.
Despite polls finding most Americans in favor of some sort of gun law reforms, successive US administrations have been powerless to pass legislation.
“The time to act is now,” Biden said.
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