'Where in God's name is our backbone?' Biden slams US gun lobby after Texas school shooting
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday made an impassionate plea to Americans to oppose the gun lobby and stop arming 18-year-olds with assault rifles that have no business being on the streets of America.
FollowHours after a gunman killed 18 children at an elementary school in Texas, United States President Joe Biden on Wednesday made an impassionate plea to Americans to oppose the gun lobby and stop arming 18-year-olds with assault rifles that have no business being on the streets of America.
Also Read: Worst school shooting in America; 18 children among 21 killed in Texas
Here are top quotes from Biden's address to the nation after the deadliest school shooting in the United States:
* To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There’s a hollowness in your chest, and you feel like you are being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out. It is suffocating. And it is never quite the same.
* As a nation, we have to ask: When in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God's name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?
* It’s been 3,448 days (10 years) since I stood up at a grade school in Connecticut, where another gunman massacred 26 people, including 20 first graders, at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Since then, there have been over 900 incidents of gunfires reported on school grounds. I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don't tell me we cannot have an impact on this carnage.
* The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong. What in God's name do you need an assault weapon for except to kill someone? Deer aren’t running through the forest with Kevlar vests on, for God's sake. It's just sick.
* These kinds of mass shootings never happen anywhere else in the world with the kind of frequency that they happen in America. Why?
* Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God's name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbies?
* It is time to turn this pain into action. It is time -- for those who obstruct or delay or block the commonsense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget. We can do so much more. We have to do more
