Protests in the US against the sale and possession of firearms

Thousands of people took to the streets of various cities in the United States on Saturday to demonstrate in favor of stricter supervision of the sale and possession of firearms after recent massacres, including that of a school in the state of Texas (south) that shocked the country.

"I join them in reiterating my call to Congress: do something," US President Joe Biden wrote on his Twitter account in support of the planned protests in Washington and many other cities.

On May 24, an 18-year-old high school student killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers after storming an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, near the Mexican border, with a semi-automatic assault rifle. A few days earlier, a white supremacist of the same age had murdered ten black people in Buffalo, in the northeastern United States.

These latest massacres, and the hundreds of shootings that don't make the headlines, have sparked new calls to come together to demand better gun access legislation.

"It's time to go back to the streets," asks 'March for Our Lives', the movement founded by victims and survivors of the massacre at the high school in Parkland, Florida (southeast), which had already organized a massive massacre in March 2018 rally in Washington.

On Saturday, the first few hundred protesters reached the huge obelisk in the US capital. One of them carried a sign with a drawing of an assault rifle with the words "child killer" written in red.

Thousands of vases with white and orange flowers were installed on the lawn in the area, representing the increase in violence in the country since 2020, the year in which 45,222 people were killed with firearms, according to Giffords, the association of origin of this memorial.
"Common Sense" Laws

"Whoever you are, walk with us," wrote "March for Our Lives" figure David Hogg in a Fox News op-ed on Friday.

"If we agree that killing children is unacceptable, then we either need to prevent these people from having guns in their hands or we need to proactively stop them from doing so," he added.

People "are fed up and it's time to pressure Congress to do something," added the young man.

Biden, taking up elements of an impassioned speech delivered on June 2 after the Uvalde school massacre, also called on lawmakers this Saturday to "pass common sense laws on firearm safety."

The ruling Democrat again listed the reforms he expects from Congress: ban the free sale of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines; strengthen background checks, including psychological, on buyers; require civilians to keep their weapons locked up; encourage reporting in cases of fear of potential actions; and make weapons manufacturers more accountable to the state.

"We cannot betray the American people again," he wrote on Twitter.
Senate negotiations

Biden has repeated his promise to crack down on gun violence that successive administrations have been unable to curb.

But in a country where nearly one in three adults owns at least one gun, Conservatives strongly oppose any move they feel might go against the rights of "law-abiding citizens".

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to ban the sale of semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines to those under 21, among other things.

This measure has almost no chance of being approved in the Senate, where it needs the support of ten conservatives.

At the same time, representatives of both parties are meeting to try to find a compromise text that can muster the necessary majority.