14 DAY TRIAL // As we previously reported, U.S. president Barack Obama issued a statement this weekend, mourning the victims of Newtown, Connecticut.
“And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics,” he states.
Many believed his statement vague, as he took a stand against assault weapons in 2008, asking for the reinstatement of the ban. It was originally supported by Bill Clinton in 1994, who helped it pass through Congress.
According to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, the issue “does remain a commitment of his,” Think Progress reports.
“What I said is, today is not the day, I believe as a father, a day to engage in the usual Washington policy debates,” Carney adds.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, quoted by Slate, issued a statement after that of the president's, pointing out that only gun restricting regulations will help end the bloodshed.
“Americans are sick and tired of these attacks on our children and neighbors and they are sick and tired of nothing being done in Washington to stop the bloodshed. If we do not take action to address gun violence, shooting tragedies like this will continue,” he says.
Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, is one of those who are asking for a gun control ordinance, the Guardian writes.
“This should be his number one agenda. He's the president of the United States and if he does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal guns,” he says.
Adam Lanza used a semi-automatic rifle, apart from two handguns, in the Sandy Hook massacre. As we wrote earlier today, he had taken the guns from his mother Nancy, an aficionado and avid collector, who often took her children to the firing range.
Bloomberg is supported by Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is also pressing on Obama that he put together a bill controlling the sale, possession and use of assault weapons.
“It will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession, not retroactively, but prospectively. [...] The purpose of this bill is to get… weapons of war off the streets,” she explains.
Regulating the capacity of the weapons is also in question, as Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal, 20-years state attorney general, points out.
“We need to do something, at the very least, perhaps, about the high-capacity magazines that were used in this crime. I intend to talk about it on the floor of the United States Senate perhaps as early as this week,” Blumenthal promises.