Texas school shooting: Biden asks Americans to stand up to gun lobby after ‘massacre’ of children

WASHINGTON: Americans must stand up to the gun lobby and pressure members of Congress to pass sensible gun laws, US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday (May 24) after the killing of at least 19 children and two teachers in a Texas school shooting.

“As a nation, we have to ask when in God’s name we’re going to stand up to the gun lobby, when in God’s name we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done,” Biden said in a televised speech, his voice rising to a crescendo.

“I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”

Authorities said an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at an elementary school in south Texas, about 130 km west of San Antonio before he apparently was killed by police officers.

Mass shootings in America are often followed by public protests and calls for action by Democratic politicians, but federal gun safety policies like background checks that are common in other countries have failed in the face of strong Republican opposition.

Biden demanded action on Tuesday night without laying out actions he intended to take, nor call for a specific vote in Congress or policy.

“I hoped when I became president I would not have to do this, again,” a visibly shaken Biden said, decrying the death of “beautiful, innocent” second, third and fourth graders in “another massacre”.

Biden, whose life has been marked by family tragedy, said the parents in Texas “will never see their child again, never have them jump in bed and cuddle with them”, he said.

He asked Americans to fight the feeling of powerlessness from seeing yet another mass shooting.

The United States experienced 61 “active shooter” incidents last year, up sharply from the prior year and the highest tally in over 20 years, the FBI reported this week.

The shooting poses for Biden, already facing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, another crisis on top of 40-year high inflation rates and the war in Ukraine.