(Washington) Gathered at the foot of the US Congress, survivors of recent shootings that have bereaved America and parents of young victims on Wednesday implored elected officials to ban the sale of assault rifles, weapons used during these massacres.
Posted at 3:28 p.m.
“Our country has a problem, a huge problem,” Abby Brosio, who survived the Highland Park shootings near Chicago, said when a 21-year-old man opened fire on a National Day parade on March 4. July, killing seven and injuring more than thirty.
In 1994, Congress passed a law banning for ten years assault rifles, designed to cause maximum casualties, and certain high-capacity magazines. It expired in 2004 and sales have since soared, especially among young people.
“Cowards”
“I want you to imagine my face when my husband and I read our daughter’s death certificate,” said Kimberly Rubio, mother of Lexi, a girl shot in the head in tears. attack on the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.
“There is a question that should live” every elected representative of the American Congress, she assured: “And if the killer had never had access to an assault rifle? »
After the Uvalde tragedy, President Joe Biden pleaded for a ban on assault rifles, or at least to raise the legal age to 21 to obtain one. But the Republican opposition, very protective of the right of Americans to bear arms, refused to give the necessary votes for the adoption of this measure in Congress.
Nearly excruciating video of the shooting released Tuesday, showing the gunman almost nonchalantly entering the elementary school, pointing his gun at a room, opening fire, and not being bothered by police until 74 minutes later, has also reignited the anger of the parents of the victims.
“It’s a shame to see how they acted,” denounced to AFP Javier Cazares, father of Jackie, who also fell under the bullets. “You see guys washing their hands, texting […]the whole planet saw how cowardly they were for not having returned” to the classroom earlier, he judged.