Massive marches in the United States calling for strict firearms controls

Thousands of people took to the streets of various cities across the United States on Saturday to demonstrate in favor of stricter control of the sale and possession of firearms following the recent massacres, including that of a school in the state of Texas (south) which shocked the nation.

“I join them in reiterating my plea to Congress: do something,” US President Joe Biden wrote on his Twitter account. support for protests scheduled in Washington and many other cities.

On May 24, an 18-year-old high school student killed 19 boys and two teachers after storming an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas near the Mexican border with a semi-automatic assault rifle.

A few days earlier, a white supremacist of the same age had killed ten blacks in Buffalo in the northeastern United States.

These latest massacres, and the hundreds of shootings that don’t make the newsit sparked new calls to come together to call for better legislation on access to weapons.

“It’s time to go back to the streets”, asks ‘March for Our Lives’, the movement founded by the victims and survivors of the Parkland, Florida high school massacre, which had already organized a massive demonstration in Washington in March 2018.

On Saturday, the first hundreds of protesters reached the huge obelisk in the US capital. One of them carried a sign with an assault rifle design with “child killer” written in red.

Joe Biden’s claim in Congress

Thousands of pots with white and orange flowers have been installed on the lawn, which represents the increase in violence in the country since 2020, when 45,222 people were killed with firearms, according to Giffords, the association of the origin of. this memorial.

“Whoever you are, walk with us,” wrote “March for Our Lives” character David Hogg in a Fox News editorial on Friday.

“If we agree that killing children is unacceptable, then we must stop these people from having guns in their hands or we must prevent them from doing it proactively,” he added.

People “are fed up and it’s time to put pressure on Congress to do something,” the young man added.

Biden, recalling elements of a passionate speech delivered on 2 June after the massacre of the Uvalde school, also called on lawmakers this Saturday to “pass common sense laws on firearms safety”.

The Democratic president has once again listed the reforms he expects from Congress: ban the free sale of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines; strengthen background checks, including psychological ones, on buyers; require civilians to keep their weapons locked up; encourage reporting in case of fear of potential actions; and make arms manufacturers more accountable to the state.

“We cannot betray the American people again,” he wrote on Twitter.

Biden reaffirmed its promise to take action against gun violence of fire that successive governments have not been able to stop.

But in a country where nearly one in three adults own at least one gun, Conservatives strongly oppose any move which they believe may go against the rights of “law-abiding citizens”.

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to ban, among other things, the sale of semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines to children under 21.

This measure has almost no chance of being passed in the Senate, where it needs the support of ten conservatives.

At the same time, representatives of both sides are meeting to try to find a compromise text that can garner the necessary majority.

Source: AFP

CB