President Joe Biden spoke briefly Monday about gun control options, including a possible ban on assault weapons. He said that the Second Amendment to the Constitution “was never absolute.” “You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed,” he said.
The president made those statements after his return from Uvalde. On Sunday, he and first lady Jill Biden visited families in the Texas town where 19 students and two teachers were killed in a shooting last Tuesday.
In that massacre, Salvador Ramos, 18, killed them with an AR-15 assault rifle. Ramos was neutralized in a rescue operation by law enforcement officials.
Biden has pledged to take steps to help prevent these kinds of tragedies. “It doesn’t make sense to be able to buy something that can fire up to 300 shots,” he said. “The idea of these high-caliber weapons…there’s just no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting, and remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute.”
The Bidens visited Robb Elementary School during their visit to Uvalde. Jill Biden left a bouquet of white flowers outside the school, and the couple attended Mass at a local church where several of the victims’ families are members. As the president was leaving the church, a crowd of about a hundred people began chanting “Do something.” Biden replied, “We will.”
On Monday, Biden told reporters that he made sure not to discuss any potential legislation with Republican lawmakers during his trip to Texas and instead focused on comforting families who had lost loved ones. However, he said the changes should be addressed in current gun laws.
Biden apparently referenced a previous federal ban on assault rifles, which expired during the administration of former President George W. Bush in 2004. “I know what happened when we had rational action before,” he said, adding that the ban “reduced mass murder.”
