As the nation approaches 10 years since its worst-ever school shooting, at Sandy Hook Elementary, President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that America should feel “guilt” collectively for its failure to address gun violence.
In a statement, Biden stated that “we have a moral duty to enact and uphold legislation that can prevent terrible things from happening again.”
He declared, “I am resolved to outlaw assault rifles and high-capacity magazines like those used at Sandy Hook.”
In the five-minute shooting rampage that took place in Newtown, Connecticut, by a young man called Adam Lanza who was carrying an AR-15 military-style assault rifle, 20 children and six adults were killed. Later, Lanza committed suicide.
The shooting stunned the nation and the rest of the world, led to increased school security, and reignited a bitter debate over gun control laws that is still going on today, ten years later.
Congress passed laws extending background checks and strengthening procedures to keep firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous persons after 19 children and two teachers were shot dead at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May of this year.
But despite the country seeing mass shooting after mass shooting, Congress has repeatedly failed to reauthorize a stronger measure outlawing assault guns that expired in 2004. Republicans’ opposition, which emphasizes the constitutional right to own a gun, is a major cause of this stagnation.
