Biden: US Needs New Gun Laws or 'We Need a New Congress'

Legislation approved after Uvalde massacre was just a first step, president says
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jun 16, 2023 4:30 PM CDT
Biden: US Needs New Gun Laws or 'We Need a New Congress'
President Biden speaks with people in the audience on Friday at the National Safer Communities Summit at the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut.   (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Biden made a passionate call for increased gun restrictions on Friday in Connecticut, celebrating the one-year anniversary of the first significant piece of federal firearms legislation in nearly three decades but declaring it was only an "important first step." He urged voters to defeat lawmakers who resist, the AP reports. "Prayers are fine. They're important ... but it's not going to stop it," Biden said, pressing Congress to take more aggressive steps to restrict access to guns. "You have to take action. You have to move. You have to do something," the president said, adding, "If this Congress refuses to act, we need a new Congress."

At a gun safety summit in West Hartford—full of survivors of gun violence and family members of victims—Biden applauded attendees for turning "your pain into purpose" and vowed not to let up on his advocacy. He spoke on the anniversary of last year's approval of legislation that tightened gun access, signed a few weeks after a gunman took the lives of 19 elementary school children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. A decade earlier, 26 children and staff were killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre less than an hour's drive from Hartford. The 2022 law toughened background checks for the youngest gun buyers, sought to keep firearms from domestic violence offenders, and aimed to help states adopt red flag laws that make it easier to take weapons away from people judged to be dangerous.

Biden ticked off ways that he said the law has made an impact. Stepped-up FBI background checks have blocked more than 200 purchases by people under 21. Prosecutions have increased for unlicensed gun sellers, and new gun trafficking penalties have been charged in more than 100 cases. Prosecutions for selling firearms without a license have doubled. "If this law had been in place a year ago, lives would have been saved," Biden said, per the AP. He also pointed to increased funding for mental health services. Yet since that bill signing, the tally of mass shootings has only grown. As of Friday, there have been at least 26 mass killings in the US this year, leaving at least 131 people dead, not including shooters, according to a database maintained by the AP and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

(More President Biden stories.)

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