President and First Lady visit Texas town of Uvalde to comfort families of school massacre victims
Six days have passed since the Uvalde, Texas massacre, in which 18-year-old Salvador Ramos walked into a fourth-grade classroom of Robb Elementary School and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle after uttering the terrifying words: “You are are all going to die.” A tragedy that is hard to forget. The President of the United States, Joe Biden, this Sunday, along with the first lady, Jill, visited that small Texas town – of some 16,000 inhabitants, 80 of whom % Spanish speaking – to comfort the families of the victims, still traumatized and with recurring nightmares about what happened.
“Too much violence, too much fear, too much pain.” In an emotional speech commemorating the 21 victims of the crime (nineteen children between the ages of 9 and 11 and two teachers), the US president urged action to prevent events of this caliber from happening again. “You can’t make drama illegal, I know. But America can be made safer,” Biden noted, lamenting that “so many innocent people have died.” For this reason, the White House chief called on “all Americans to unite and make their voices heard and work together to make this nation what it can and should be.”
For its part, the US Department of Justice announced this Sunday that there will be a review of the work of local and federal police forces during the massacre at Uvalde Elementary School. According to the newspaper ‘The Hill’, a so-called ‘critical incident review’ will be conducted, with the aim of “taking an independent picture of the action and response of the security forces that day and identifying the lessons learned to improve practices” in the light of such violent events.
The Bidens visited the memorial altar at Robb Elementary School. They attended Mass and met the families of the victims and survivors at the County Events Center to join them in mourning the worst shooting in the United States since 20 children and six adults were shot at Sandy Elementary School in 2012. Hook, in Newtown, Connecticut.
Attempts to tighten firearms rules have repeatedly failed in the country. But this latest crime has reopened the debate and could change the future of US law. “There are more Republicans willing to talk about finding a way forward this time around than we’ve seen since Sandy Hook,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who has been talking to Republicans since Tuesday’s shooting, told ABC. on the use and sale of weapons, to promote a change in the law.
Two of the more talked about issues are the restriction – under judicial supervision – of firearms possession to some individuals by their own relatives or the police and also more control over the storage of firearms. It won’t be easy, but after the Uvalde school massacre, there’s a “different feeling,” said Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate. “The real challenge is whether the Republicans will stand up and show courage in a very difficult situation,” he told CNN.
However, he bet that “there will be some” opposition lawmakers who are in favor of advancing new regulations, according to initial conclusions he drew from the meetings he held this weekend. This is the case of Adam Kinzinger, a moderate Republican in the House of Representatives, who claimed to be “open to a ban” or other measures following the country’s latest tragedy.
Attempts to tighten gun regulations have repeatedly failed in the United States. But this latest crime has reopened the debate. Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault weapons in the country on Saturday. Do you know what an assault weapon is? It was designed with a specific purpose: to kill a lot of people quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war that has no place in civil society,” he said.
Harris also suggested measures to tighten up gun sales, such as background checks to find out if the client has committed a crime before — a system already implemented with driver’s licenses. “This should not happen in our country, we must have the courage to do something about it,” said the vice president.
Source: La Verdad
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