Biden calls on Congress to act on gun violence after the latest shooting

US President Joe Biden called on Congress to act against the epidemic of gun violence in America.

The call came on Tuesday after a new massacre on the University of Michigan campus left three people dead and five injured.

As the leader of a state plagued by daily shootings, Biden said he promised the state’s Democratic governor to “deploy all necessary federal law enforcement.”

The gunman shot his victims, all students, during a rampage on the Michigan State University (MSU) campus before dying of a gunshot wound several hours later.

At an emotional news conference in Lansing, the capital of the North Central state, police said the suspect, 43-year-old Anthony McCray, had no affiliation with the school and was found dead around midnight Monday.

At the news conference, the visibly shaken Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called the issue of gun violence a “uniquely American problem.”

Speaking to reporters, she said the university had become “another place that’s meant to be about community and teamwork that’s been riddled with bullets and bloodshed.”

Biden drove this point home in two consecutive statements from the White House.

“Gun violence has devastated many American communities,” he said.

“I have taken action to combat this pandemic in America, including a historic number of executive actions and the first significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years, but we must do more,” he said.

The shooting occurred on the eve of the anniversary of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 14 students and three staff members were killed.

Biden said the shooting should “make every American cheer enough and demand Congress take action.”

Slow progress

Biden has called on Congress unsuccessfully to reintroduce a national ban on assault rifles, which was in place from 1994 to 2004, but he faces opposition from Republicans who staunchly defend the constitutional right to bear arms and have a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. of deputies since January.

After gunfire rang out in the campus building where two students were killed early Monday evening, thousands of students were ordered to take cover.

The gunman fled to the Student Union, where he killed another student, leading to a major police operation as officers overran the 5,000-acre campus.

Police received a tip-off from a local resident after security camera images quickly released a black man wearing a loose-fitting blue jacket and red shoes.

The university’s interim deputy chief of police, Chris Rosman, said Tuesday at a news conference that authorities still had “absolutely no idea of ​​a motive.”

He said authorities found a gun and searched a residence linked to the suspect.

Gun violence is alarmingly common in the United States, a country where there are more guns than people and where attempts to clamp down on their prevalence have always met stiff resistance.

The shooting is the second on a school campus in the midwestern state of the United States in 15 months, Rep. Elisa Slutkin confirmed at a news conference, saying, “If this isn’t a wake-up call to do something, I don’t know what is.”

In November 2021, four students were killed and seven others injured when a 15-year-old student opened fire at Oxford High School in the rural town of Oxford, Michigan.

Calling for action on gun violence, Slutkin said, “I am filled with outrage that we should have another press conference to talk about our children being killed in their schools.”

According to the university’s website, there are about 50,000 students enrolled at MSU, a higher institution in the United States, and most of them are undergraduates.

Tens of thousands of people die every year in the United States after being shot, and many more are injured.

Eleven people were shot dead last month when an elderly man opened fire at a dance hall in California, where locals were celebrating the Lunar New Year.