Faced with mass killings, Joe Biden attacks the gun market

Joe Biden unveiled, Thursday, April 8, the first measures to better regulate the firearms market, which feed the scourge of mass killings. The death of twenty people in two massacres committed in Georgia and Colorado in March forced the President of the United States to take action.

Speaking, Joe Biden assured that none of his proposals undermined the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which protects the right to own a weapon. Armed violence in this country is an epidemic and it is an international embarrassment ”, he assured, before recalling the murderous statistics. Enough, Enough, Enough, he added. Enough prayers, we must start to act. “

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The measures announced may appear modest in view of the scale of a phenomenon responsible each year for the death of more than forty thousand people – more than half of whom are suicides. They are placed under the authority of the new Attorney General of the United States (Minister of Justice), Merrick Garland.

The latter must thus tackle the phenomenon of “phantom weapons”, purchased in spare parts and which do not have a serial number, making them untraceable. Changes to certain handguns, such as adding a stabilizer to make them more precise, and therefore more lethal, are also affected. The author of the Colorado massacre had thus adapted his weapon.

A report on ordered arms trafficking

The Ministry of Justice must also allow the adoption by States which so wish of legislation allowing the temporary confiscation of firearms when their holder represents a danger to himself or to his relatives. Joe Biden also commissioned Merrick Garland to prepare a report on arms trafficking, which has not been done for two decades.

The President of the United States has endeavored to respond in advance to the frustration of organizations which campaign for better regulation of firearms and for the prohibition of some of them, such as semi-automatic weapons, which are regularly used. in the mass killings, by appointing a figure from this movement to head the federal agency responsible for them.

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David Chipman, a former member of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has worked for one of these organizations for five years, founded by former Democratic MP Gabrielle Gifford, herself seriously injured during a mass killing in Tucson (Arizona), in 2011, and presented Thursday at the White House. Sign of the extreme politicization of the firearms file, this post has been vacant since 2015 and the confirmation by the Senate of the choice of Joe Biden should give rise to a battle all the more bitter since the Democratic majority is only holding on a voice.

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