President Joe Biden on Friday defended pushing for coronavirus and infrastructure spending legislation over gun control reform after a FedEx employee shot dead eight former co-workers in Indianapolis overnight, just the latest mass shooting since he took office.
“I’ve never not prioritized this. No one has worked harder to deal with the violence used by individuals using weapons than I have,” Biden said in the White House Rose Garden during a joint press conference with his Japanese counterpart.
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Raising his voice at times, Biden touted his own record before urging the Senate to bring an end to what he called “a national embarrassment” of shooting deaths. A gunman, 19, killed eight people and injured seven others at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis late Thursday before turning his weapon on himself.
“The folks who own weapons, the folks who own guns, they support universal background checks, the majority of them think we should not be selling assault weapons,” Biden said. “Who in God’s name needs a weapon that can hold 100 rounds, or 40 rounds, or 20 rounds? It’s just wrong.”
The House passed two bills last month expanding background checks, but the Senate has yet to take them up. Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, for instance, is against the measures without changes, wanting exemptions that would cover private sales between individuals who know one another. Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline have also proposed an assault weapons ban.
“It’s not a question of my being able to set the agenda in the Senate as to what they will move to first,” Biden said Friday, seeming to put the impetus on Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.
Biden last week directed the Justice Department to propose rules to help stop the proliferation of so-called “ghost guns” and to “make clear” that braces designed to turn some pistols into short-barreled rifles should be illegal. He has also asked the Justice Department to draft model “red flag” legislation for states and nominated David Chipman to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The executive action, though, was panned by gun control activists seeking sweeping reform.
During his first stand-alone press conference last month, Biden said timing is important as he tries to manage multiple crises, from the pandemic to racial unrest over police brutality allegations.
“As you’ve all observed, successful presidents, better than me, have been successful, in large part, because they know how to time what they’re doing — order it, decide, and prioritize what needs to be done,” he said at the time.
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Biden spoke in the Rose Garden Friday after his first in-person White House meeting with a foreign leader as president. He was joined by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, with the pair announcing what Biden described as “a new competitive and reliance partnership … between Japan and the United States.”
Such joint initiatives are aimed, largely, at combating China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. How to deal with Beijing was the top agenda item for the Japanese leader’s visit.
