Name: ‘Enough prayers, time for some action’: Joe Biden wades into America’s battle over gun control
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‘Enough prayers, time for some action’: Joe Biden wades into America’s battle over gun control

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close This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To orderpresentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distributionto colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire aboutpermissions/licensing, please go to: WASHINGTON—“Gun violence in this country is an epidemic. And it is an international embarrassment,” President Joe Biden said Thursday in the Rose Garden of the White House. “Enough, enough, enough, enough.”He was announcing a series of executive orders and voicing support for legislation to curtail gun violence. Biden mentioned the shooting spree in Atlanta last month that left eight people dead. He mentioned the mass shooting in Boulder six days later in which 10 people died. “Between those two incidents, less than one week apart, there were more than 850 additional shootings that took the lives of more than 250 people, and left 500 injured.” Enough, he said. To many, it might appear that the measures he was proposing — billed as a first step — are not nearly enough. Still, for many gun advocates in the U.S., they are too much. This is, to take a step back, one of the biggest differences one notices between life and culture in Canada and in the U. S: The displays of guns at department stores, the gun shops on the main streets of every small town, the people in the street — depending on the state — wearing a pistol holster on their hip or openly carrying an AR-15 military-style rifle.At a protest , I witnessed an angry confrontation involving a Trump-supporting counterprotester who was carrying an AR-15. People kept demanding to know why he’d brought a gun to a peaceful protest. “This is an open carry state,” a nearby police officer kept repeating, as if the existence of a law allowing that gun to be carried was all the explanation anyone could want for why you’d choose to bring one into a crowd. Less than one week later, a Trump-supporting counterprotester brought an AR-15 to another protest in Wisconsin and shot three people, killing two of them. In January 2020, at a massive gun-rights protest in Virginia, where the streets were crowded with people wearing body armour and carrying rifles, I heard repeatedly that guns made people safer and attempts to restrict them were tyranny. I mentioned to one man that few people own handguns in Canada and virtually no one owns assault weapons. He shrugged and told me the U.S. is a culture that values freedom. It’s also a culture which about six times more gun deaths per capita each year . And Americans’ access to guns isn’t an academic issue for Canadians, since smuggling across the border is a major source of illegal guns in Canada (Statistics Canada last year to track the source of guns used in crimes). In any event, Biden’s announcement of new measures to reduce gun violence could look slight to northern eyes — “Nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment,” he said — but they come in the context of a far different gun culture. They include:That last one could turn out to be the most significant. Research indicates that community intervention programs are among the most effective way to reduce gun violence — a , for example, found that in some cities targeted interventions largely focused on economic opportunity cut homicide rates by as much as 50 per cent within two years. In his speech, Biden also encouraged the Senate to take up three laws already passed by the House of Representatives that would close background-check requirement loopholes, and limit access to guns by domestic abusers. He encouraged Congress to bring back bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and to end gun manufacturer immunity from lawsuits.“They’ve offered plenty of thoughts and prayers, members of Congress, but they’ve passed not a single new federal law to reduce gun violence. Enough prayers, time for some action,” Biden said. “This is not a partisan issue among the American people.” report in 2019, 60 per cent of Americans favoured stricter gun laws, and a majority of Republicans voters supported measures such as requiring background checks for sales at gun shows and banning high-capacity magazines.But it certainly isn’t unanimous. The National Rifle Association Wednesday night to say it was “ready to fight” Biden’s “extreme gun control actions.”Julie Gunlock of the conservative Independent Women’s Forum issued a statement while Biden was still speaking. “People have a right to defend themselves, and the government should have no role in telling people how to do it,” she wrote. “President Biden’s (executive order) will only embolden criminals and endanger law-abiding American lives.”Meanwhile, by late Thursday afternoon there were reports of another mass shooting, . They came only hours after police in Rock Hill, S.C., to share details of a shooting in which a former NFL player is suspected to have . They said he apparently used two handguns, and that there was no evidence they had been illegally obtained.Biden had mentioned that Rock Hill shooting in his news conference, too. “This is an epidemic, for God’s sake,” Biden said. “And it has to stop.”JOIN THE CONVERSATION Q:Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)Sign InRegisterConversations are opinions of our readers and are subject to the . The Star does not endorse these opinions.Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. Allrights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content isexpressly prohibited without the prior written consent of TorontoStar Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies ofToronto Star articles, please go to:

close This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To orderpresentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distributionto colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire aboutpermissions/licensing, please go to: WASHINGTON—“Gun violence in this country is an epidemic. And it is an international embarrassment,” President Joe Biden said Thursday in the Rose Garden of the White House. “Enough, enough, enough, enough.”He was announcing a series of executive orders and voicing support for legislation to curtail gun violence. Biden mentioned the shooting spree in Atlanta last month...

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Edward Keenan

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‘Enough prayers, time for some action’: Joe Biden wades into America’s battle over gun control

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