On Sunday, Joe Biden will certainly find words of remorse in the face of the families of school students killed in Texas, but the president has so far come from the background of the political war on guns, yet has bet on a parliamentary mobilization. Acquired.
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“He cannot be the ‘chief consolation’. He must put all the weight of his activity into the legislative battle,” said Peter Ambler of the Gifords Association, which fights for strong regulation, in an interview with Politico.
So far, the 79-year-old Democrat seems reluctant, which has little to do with his personality and a lot to do with a strategic calculation.
Joe Biden is an emotional, twice-dead father – but not of a gun fault: he lost his still-child daughter and an adult son to cancer in a car accident.
The President takes this “leadership comfort” role to heart. He wants to believe that the 19 schoolchildren and 2 teachers who were killed in a shooting at a Wolde (Texas) school where he and his wife, Jill Biden, are Americans can mourn together, despite divisions.
But if Joe Biden supports the emotional record and questions for now – “When are we going to face the gun lobby for God’s love?” He shouted on Tuesday – this is also a political calculation.
The former senator, who has joined parliamentary power, wants Congress to pass a bill that would generalize the mental and judicial background of arms buyers, while preventing large-scale purchases of assault rifles and ammunition.
“We did what we could. (…) But for now, we need the help of Congress,” executive spokeswoman Karen Jean-Pierre said Thursday.
The White House hopes that Joe Biden’s strong involvement will, above all, disrupt the already acrobatic legislative process, at a time when he is most influential in the referendum.
Democrats who support the bill need to trust a select few Republicans because of the decent majority rules.
Joe Biden has so far refrained from openly criticizing the majority Republican opposition to any reform. And some members are campaigning with arms for the November assembly elections.
The U.S. administration also argues that federal law will have a greater impact than presidential decrees, which are not restricted to all U.S. states and can only be controlled at the margins.
But many groups campaigning for gun regulation, without doubting the president’s hopes, believe he should be more involved.
Igor Wolski, director of the Guns Town America organization, ruled on Twitter that the president could create an organization dedicated specifically to guns at the White House, meet with affected communities, get activists and put pressure on MPs personally. “At least it was,” he wrote.
The unions fear that the United States will fall back into the tragic familiar situation after a mass shooting: the wave of emotions will subside and lead to significant reforms before it becomes real political pressure.
The shock caused by the massacre at Wolde School was not enough to disrupt corporate practice.
Thus Congress ceased its work, and for a long ten-day break the Members of Parliament fled to their constituencies.
