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USA: Three killed in a fire in a church parking lot in Iowa

A man has shot and killed two women in a church parking lot in the state of Iowa before turning his shotgun on himself, police said, as the list of victims of gun attacks in the United States continues to grow.

The incident in Iowa was announced shortly after President Joe Biden’s sermon on the issue of weapons after the mass shootings in Buffalo (New York), Ovalde (Texas) and Tulsa (Oklahoma).

Two people – five, according to media reports – were seriously injured, one by bullets, during a funeral in the city of Racine (Wisconsin) yesterday at noon (local time). No arrests were reported.

In Iowa, according to Nicholas Lenny, a Story County police officer, the killing took place outside Cornerstone Church, east of Ames. It is a church of fundamentalist Christians. Mr. Lenny spoke of an “isolated incident”, avoiding to reveal the relationship between the perpetrator and the victims.

Biden’s appeal to restrict sales of assault rifles

Minutes earlier, President Biden was shouting “Enough is enough!” during a sermon calling on Congress to ban the sale of assault rifles and large-capacity cartridges and to promote stricter checks on the criminal record and psychiatric history of potential firearms buyers after two children were killed in a shooting. Texas, Republicans Opposing Measures.

“How many more massacres are we willing to accept?” The head of state thundered, repeating in his seventeen-minute sermon from the White House that the “repeated” attacks with the use of firearms, which are immersing the USA in mourning, are “enough”.

Behind the podium were 56 candles, representing the victims of the massacres in all US states and regions.

After the most recent, in the primary school of Uvalde, in a supermarket in Buffalo, in a hospital in Tulsa, he stressed that “too many” locations in the country have been “turned into places of killing, of battlefields”.

Mr Biden called for a nationwide ban on the sale of semi-automatic assault rifles, as had been the case from 1994 to 2004. , the Democrat added that the minimum that can and should be done is to increase the age limit for the purchase of such weapons, which is now 18 years old, to 21.

He also demanded that large-capacity magazines be banned, that controls on the criminal record and psychological history of would-be arms buyers be tightened, and that individuals be required to keep their weapons locked in their homes.

“For twenty years, more students have been killed by gunfire than police and soldiers on duty together. Think about it,” he said.

The “second amendment” to the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms, is not “absolute,” the US president said.

After Sandy Hook

“I support the effort (…) of a small group of Republicans and Democratic senators looking to find a way, but, oh my God, the fact that the majority of Republican senators do not want any of these proposals to be discussed, let alone put forward. “In a vote, I find this unacceptable.”

“We can not betray the American people again,” he said. “It’s time for the Senate to do something.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Senator Chris Murphy tweeted after the address.

“We have to do something. And we can,” continued the Connecticut candidate, who, forever marked by the Sandy Hook massacre (26 dead, including 20 children, in 2012), has taken on the role of pilot in the Republican debate. of Democrats in the Senate.

The challenge for this group is to find measures that could be adopted by ten Republicans – to secure the strengthened majority needed.

But in a country where more than 30% of adults own at least one firearm, conservatives strongly oppose any measure against the rights of “law-abiding citizens.”

The debate in the Senate revolves around limited proposals, such as the control of the criminal record and the history of would-be arms buyers, something that civil society organizations have been calling for for years.

It remains to be seen whether the negotiations in Congress will bear fruit or whether the current initiative will have the fate of the previous ones, like the one in the days of Barack Obama after the Sandy Hook massacre.

Mr Murphy acknowledged that there was an “increasing momentum” to “get something done”. Republican Sen. Pat Tummy has expressed “optimism” about this.

At the same time, a draft law was discussed in the House of Representatives yesterday, which provides for a ban on the sale of assault rifles to individuals under the age of 21, as well as a complete ban on the sale of large-capacity magazines. The text, which will be put to a vote in the House next week, has already been described as “ineffective”, “irrational”, “anti-American” by a Republican group. Even if it passes the House, it is not considered that there is a chance for it to be voted in the Senate.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

Source: Capital

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