Spelling out an “epidemic,” President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled targeted measures to limit the proliferation of guns in the United States, where shootings are a recurring scourge that successive governments have so far been powerless to stem . On this occasion, he called in particular for the prohibition of assault rifles for individuals. “We should ban assault rifles and high capacity magazines,” he said at an event in the gardens of the White House.
“Gun violence in this country is an epidemic, it is an international disgrace,” blasted the Democratic president, announcing six decrees, which remain of limited scope.
Micro measurements
One of these measures aims to combat “ghost weapons”, which are handcrafted, sometimes with a 3D printer, and do not have a serial number. The rules for certain handguns equipped with a stabilizer attachment attached to the shooter’s arm, a device used in a recent massacre in Colorado, will also be tightened. The president also commissioned a first comprehensive report on firearms trafficking in the United States since 2000.
But, knowing full well that he is not currently in a position to make Congress adopt more daring actions on this highly sensitive subject, because of the very narrow Democratic parliamentary majority, Joe Biden was satisfied with micro-measures. As a result, no major breakthrough has, for example, been announced on the subject of criminal or psychological background checks on small arms buyers.
The president also announced the appointment of David Chipman, a proponent of tougher small arms laws, to head the ATF, the federal agency that regulates firearms. A sign of the lack of political unity on this hypersensitive subject, the ATF has not had a director confirmed by the Senate since 2015. Joe Biden, a long-time defender of better regulation of firearms, has promised during his campaign to act on this front. A spate of shootings in recent weeks, including killings in Georgia and then Colorado in March, has increased pressure for him to take action.
43,000 gun deaths in 2020
In 1994, then senator, Joe Biden had participated in the adoption of a law banning assault rifles. But the measure was only valid for ten years and could never be renewed after 2004 given the opposition of elected Republican officials to what they perceive as a violation of a constitutional right. Former President Donald Trump, who received tens of millions of dollars from the NRA, the powerful gun lobby, for his two presidential campaigns, has on the contrary in the past claimed to be the most fervent defender of American rights. to hold a weapon.
Guns killed more than 43,000 people, including suicides, in the United States in 2020, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The organization counted 611 “mass shootings” – which count at least four victims – in 2020, against 417 the previous year. And, since the 1is January, more than 11,000 people have already been killed by firearms. But many Americans remain very attached to their guns and have even rushed to buy more since the start of the pandemic, and even more during the major anti-racist protests of spring 2020 and the electoral tensions of the fall.
Joe Biden assured that none of these measures “encroached” on the Second Amendment of the Constitution, brandished by the defenders of firearms as the guarantee of their right to carry a weapon.
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