President Biden urged Congress to ban assault weapons and tighten background checks on gun sales in the aftermath of the Colorado mass shooting.
“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps or save the lives in the future, and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act,” he said in an address Tuesday at the White House. “We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again.”
Biden, as a senator, helped push a ban on the most lethal firearms in 1994. It expired a decade later.
On Tuesday, he expressed sympathy for the families of the 10 victims killed in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday and paid tribute to Eric Talley, the police officer who died in the shooting, as the “definition of an American hero.”
BIDEN UNDER PRESSURE TO ACT ON GUN KILLINGS
But his address broke new ground in its demands for swift action to prevent more gun deaths.
He urged the Senate to move fast on two bills that have already passed the House that will expand background checks.
“This is not and should not be a partisan issue,” he said. “This is an American issue. It will save American lives. We have to act. We should also ban assault weapons in the process.”
His comments follow two mass shootings in less than a week.
Police earlier charged Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old from the Denver suburb of Arvada, with 10 murders committed inside a Colorado supermarket.
They said they do not yet know what motivated the shooter to open fire. Officers said Alissa was in the hospital being treated for a leg wound sustained during a firefight.
A week earlier, eight people, mostly Asian American women, were shot dead at massage parlors in and around Atlanta, Georgia.
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The two mass shootings have intensified pressure on Biden to act against gun violence.
