So far this year there have been more than a hundred shootings in the United States, the highest number in the last decade. The frequent massacres that shake the country have motivated President Joe Biden to toughen the measures for access to firearms, among which are the new application of limits on the sale of arsenals that will force from now on to verify criminal records of potential buyers and subject marketers to strict monitoring.
“It’s just common sense: verify if someone is a criminal or a domestic abuser before buying a weapon,” said the president when announcing the new battery of measures. Biden has also ordered the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to adjust the legal definition of sellers to implement sanctions in case he fails to comply with the order to review a client’s criminal history before making a sale.
The White House will ask the Federal Trade Commission to analyze how companies market and also promote the use of firearms among minors. And it proposes more and better conditions for the safe storage of ammunition, since it has been confirmed that the non-existence of gunsmiths or the habitual practice of leaving a loaded weapon at home is behind the majority of deaths by bullets that occur in the domestic sphere. The most recent episode occurred this week when a 3-year-old girl accidentally killed her sister, just a year older than her, when they were playing at her home in Texas. Apparently, the little girl found the pistol loaded and without a relative’s safety on and pulled the trigger during one of the games.
Another effect of the regulation seeks to appease the scandal caused by one of the companies that manufactures the AR-15 assault rifle, which has put on the market a smaller and lighter version intended for minors who want to enter the “world of hunting and sport shooting”, according to the propaganda of the house itself. This weapon is the most widely used among mass murderers and has sparked a wave of protest campaigns among Democratic legislators, NGOs calling for an end to the free sale of weapons, and organizations of relatives of victims, who consider it “abhorrent” to open a market.” so dangerous” to children and adolescents.
The Government has also reinforced the measure called “red flags” or “danger alerts”, approved the previous year. It allows the removal of the weapon from those who are considered a danger to themselves or to third parties. The rule is already applied in 19 states and the District of Columbia, but there is much misinformation about how or when it can be used, causing a mixed response from governors.
The package of restrictions has been made public in front of the inhabitants of Monterey Park, in California, where they still mourn the death of eleven people from a shooting registered at the beginning of the year. President Biden visited the community, the majority of Asian origin, that lived through the tragedy when they were celebrating Lunar New Year, and a man burst into a dance hall and fired indiscriminately. In the middle of the speech against the free sale of weapons, Biden gave the floor to Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old man who managed to disarm the Monterey Park gunman, preventing another massacre at a second nightclub.
Facing the 2024 presidential elections, the White House tenant has been championed as one of the promoters of placing limits on access to military-style semi-automatic rifles because they are the most used in mass shootings. “Ban assault weapons. Do it now,” Biden stressed.
However, the road to achieve your goal is not easy. Congress is divided. The Senate, with a Democratic majority, supports restrictions on the sale of weapons, but the House of Representatives, in the hands of Republicans, has already warned that it will not allow strict laws. In fact, the dispute was already evident in June of last year when the legislature approved a historic gun control measure, the first in thirty years, to improve school safety, mental health programs, and violence prevention.
death toll
The United States has already accumulated 110 shootings so far this year and 8,415 people have lost their lives by firearms in just three months, more than half of them by suicide, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Massacres have increased in recent years and have revived the debates on the control of firearms, since it is estimated that every year there are 40,000 deaths due to them.
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