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| Photo Credit: AP |
US President Joe Biden has lamented that “too many” American “schools have become killing fields” and “battlefields” in a speech delivered on June the 2nd following the Uvalde school mass shooting in Texas.
“Standing there in that small town, like so many other communities across America, I couldn’t help but
think there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields, battlefields here in America,” the President said.“We stood at such a place just 12 days before, across from a
grocery store in Buffalo, New York, memorializing 10 fellow Americans — a
spouse, a parent, a grandparent, a sibling — gone forever.
“At both places, we spent hours with hundreds of family
members who were broken and whose lives will never be the same. And they had one message for all of us: Do
something. Just do something. For God’s sake, do something,” Mr Biden
stressed.
President Biden narrated how too many school shootings have
come in one after another without any tangible action to prevent future
occurrence.
“After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after
Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland, nothing has been done.”
Mr Biden said he has no intention of taking away “anyone’s
guns” nor “vilifying gun owners” but stressed that “we should be treating
responsible gun owners as an example of how every gun owner should behave”,
adding that “I respect the culture and the tradition and the concerns of lawful
gun owners.
“This isn’t about taking away anyone’s rights. It’s about protecting children. It’s about protecting families. It’s about protecting whole communities. It’s about protecting our freedoms to go to
school, to a grocery store, and to a church without being shot and killed.”
President Biden quoted new data just released by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention which held that guns are the number one
killer of children in the United States of America.
The President added that “Over the last two decades, more
school-aged children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and
active-duty military combined. Think
about that: more kids than on-duty cops killed by guns, more kids than soldiers
killed by guns.”
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He wondered when Americans will all rise up to say enough of
mass killings.
Most American citizens possess assault rifles that hold
30-round magazines making it easier to kill so many people in a short period of
time.
“The shooter in Sandy Hook came from a home full of guns and was able to kill
his mother and 26 other people including 20 first graders,” Mr Biden cried out.
Gun laws are notoriously lax in Texas enabling people to
buy assault rifles once they turn 18 even though it is impossible to buy a
pistol until you are 21.
"That’s why mental health is at the heart of my Unity Agenda
that I laid out in the State of the Union Address this year," the President said.
No fewer than 19 children and 2 of their teachers were
killed when an active shooter barricaded himself in an elementary school in
Texas and executed the students who watched helplessly as he took the students
down on a turn by turn basis. The police arrived at the crime but waited outside for about an
hour before a decision was reached to storm the facility and the shooter was
taken down.