(Washington) US Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday took on a new role in preventing gun violence, likely to give her even more visibility before the 2024 election.
The 58-year-old Democrat will supervise the new “Office for the Prevention of Gun Violence” wanted by Joe Biden, an organization with a coordinating role, but without binding powers.
“There is no freedom when you don’t feel safe,” Kamala Harris said in a statement.
“We cannot waste one more minute, we cannot lose one more life” while the United States is “torn apart” by gun violence, she added during a speech at the White House.
“After each killing, we hear a simple message, the same throughout the country […] Do something, please do something,” the American president stressed.
PHOTO JACQUELYN MARTIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Joe Biden
Joe Biden does not have the power to limit the number of guns in circulation, for example by banning assault rifles as he would like to do, because that is a prerogative of Congress.
However, the Republicans, fiercely opposed to any regulation, actually have the power of veto.
Joe Biden is therefore trying to get around the problem through administrative and regulatory initiatives, of limited scope.
Its decision to entrust the supervision of this new organization to Kamala Harris nevertheless remains significant, a little over a year before the presidential election, in which the 80-year-old Democrat and the vice-president are already candidates, on the same “ticket”.
The vice-president has so far been responsible for politically complicated issues such as immigration. With the issue of firearms, this former California prosecutor sees her role expand in the campaign for the 2024 presidential election.
The first woman to become vice-president, and also the first representative in this position of both African-Americans and Asian-Americans, she recently embarked on a tour to “defend our freedoms” in several American universities.
She has most often been received with enthusiasm, contrasting with the low popularity with which polls credit her.