Pressed from all sides to act after the Uvalde killings, Joe Biden promised on Monday to “keep pushing” for stricter gun regulation, which remains difficult to achieve given the narrow Democratic majority in Congress. The US president, who visited the Texas town on Sunday and spent several hours with families of victims, said “the pain was palpable”.
On Tuesday, 19 children — ages 9 to 11 — and two female teachers died at Robb Elementary School by the bullets of a teenager, plunging America back into the recurring nightmare of school shootings.
During the presidential visit on Sunday, several voices had asked him to “do something”. ” We will do it. We will do it ! Joe Biden then replied.
“I have always had the will” to act on weapons, he reaffirmed to journalists on Monday, assuring that he “would continue to push”. “It doesn’t make sense to be able to buy something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” he added.
The second amendment to the US Constitution, which allows the possession of firearms, “has never been absolute”, assured the 79-year-old president, affirming that certain categories of armament were excluded at the time.
Negotiations are taking place between elected Democrats and Republicans to try to find a compromise on this thorny issue, on which Joe Biden has so far failed to legislate. The Democratic president clarified on Monday that he was not participating in these discussions himself, but that he believed “that things have become so serious that it makes everyone more rational on this subject”.
The day before, Democratic senators had expressed cautious optimism that tougher laws would be passed. Influential Senator Dick Durbin said he felt “a different state of mind” among elected officials, even those in the Republican camp, traditionally much less inclined to legislate on the subject.
But the face that this law could have, which would necessarily be the result of difficult concessions, remains unclear. Among the tracks mentioned by the elected officials: an increase in the age necessary to buy a weapon or a generalization of the examination of the psychiatric and judicial history.
Violence and bereavement
The United States still experienced a dozen mass shootings over the weekend, causing several deaths and dozens of injuries, according to a tally by the Gun Violence Archive site. It was a long weekend — Monday being a holiday to mark the Memorial Daya day dedicated to fallen American soldiers — which usually results in more of this type of violence.
Six teenagers were injured on Saturday evening in Chattanooga, Tennessee, “during what appears to be an altercation with other young people”, has tweeted the city’s mayor, Tim Kelly. Another shooting on Sunday left one dead and seven injured, including a child, at a festival in Taft, Oklahoma, state authorities said.
In Texas, Uvalde, still traumatized by the attack at her school, was preparing to bury the 21 victims. An anonymous donor has offered more than $175,000 to “ensure that all family funeral costs are covered,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Friday.
The funeral will begin Tuesday, and will extend until mid-June. One of the first ceremonies will be that of Amerie Jo Garza, a little girl who had just celebrated her tenth birthday when she was killed.