Biden Urges Congress to Act After Latest Mass Shooting

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the recent mass shootings from the White House on June 2, 2022. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

President Joe Biden has urged Congress to ban assault weapons after the latest mass shootings in America as Democrats position gun control as a central platform of the 2022 midterm elections.

Speaking from the Cross Hall of the White House, the president repeated claims that the Second Amendment was “not absolute” while urging lawmakers to strengthen gun control laws, and if that fails, for the people to turn their “outrage into making this issue central to your vote.”

Biden laid out what he called “rational, commonsense measures” for Congress to consider. However, he noted that Democrats would need at least 10 Republicans on board in the Senate.

“We need to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21; strengthen background checks; enact safe storage and red flag laws; repeal the immunity that protect gun manufacturers from liability; address the mental health crisis, deepening the trauma of gun violence,” Biden said.

The president’s remarks come after a number of mass shootings in Texas, Oklahoma, and New York.

A makeshift memorial at Robb Elementary School is filled with flowers, toys, signs, and crosses bearing the names of all 21 victims of the mass shooting that occurred on May 24, in Uvalde, Texas, on May 27, 2022. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

In the last few weeks, gunmen have killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, four people at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

Biden said his pitch was not about “taking away anyone’s guns” while restating his position that “the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute.”

“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, to a church without being shot and killed,” he said.

The president and Democrats are positioning gun control as a platform to take to the 2022 midterm elections, with the top Senate Democrat saying the party will not pursue a doomed test vote on gun control measures.

Gun safety advocates rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in the Second Amendment case NY State Rifle & Pistol vs. City of New York, N.Y., in Washington, on Dec. 2, 2019. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Biden said that “if Congress fails ... I believe a majority of you will act to turn your outrage into making this issue central to your vote.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has similarly called on Americans who want more gun control to vote for Democrats in November.

“Americans can cast their vote in November for senators or members of Congress that reflect how he or she stands with guns, with this issue—this issue—at the top of the voters lists,” he said in a statement.

House Republicans have called current gun control legislation making its way through Congress as being “ill-advised and ineffective” and hampering “the ability of law-abiding Americans to defend themselves. Un-American. Political. Waste of time.”

The bill is not expected to pass the Senate.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told House Republicans that they risk turning their backs on their constituents if they vote to pass gun laws.

“If you back red flag laws in some reflexive response to some emotion that you have, you betray your voters, you are a traitor to the Constitution, you do nothing to make mass shootings less likely, and you put a target on the back of your constituents,” he said.

“What the Democrats want is to ensure that the government has the power to take your guns away without giving you due process,” he went on to say.