– Biden tightens control over gun sales
The Justice Department issued tougher regulations on Thursday to require gun sellers to verify the profiles of buyers.
Posted today at 01:51 Updated 33 minutes ago
Image d’illustration.
AFP
The administration of US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday a tightening of the regulation of the firearms trade in order to force sellers to verify the profile of buyers. The regulations issued by the Justice Department aim to close loopholes in a law enacted in June 2022 following a series of deadly shootings.
These rules aim to clarify the definition of people “involved in the trade” of weapons, to induce sellers to acquire a license and thus oblige them to check the criminal and psychological background of their buyers. They also increase control over the trade in collectible guns and theoretically allow the government to better track the journey of registered guns from one owner to another.
“It’s a matter of common sense, because we know that background checks are one of the best tools available to prevent dangerous weapons from falling into the hands of criminals,” reacted the spokeswoman for the House- Blanche, Karine Jean-Pierre. The Biden administration “will continue to do everything possible to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing our families, our communities and our country apart,” she said.
Conservative Opposition
The Democratic president has promised to fight for a better framework for weapons, but comes up against the opposition of conservatives, fierce defenders of the constitutional right to have weapons, who oppose any significant legislative tightening.
The United States has more individual weapons than inhabitants, partly because of the ease with which Americans have access to them. One in three adults owns at least one weapon and almost one in two adults lives in a household where there is a weapon.
This proliferation goes hand in hand with a very high rate of firearm deaths in the United States, without comparison with that of other Western countries. According to the NGO Gun Violence Archive, which documents these deaths, 44,374 people were killed by firearm in 2022 in the United States, with a slight decline this year, to 28,793 deaths for the first eight months of 2023 Suicides account for nearly 55% of firearm deaths.
AFP
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2023-08-31 23:51:19
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