Guns will be banned when Donald Trump addresses the National Rifle Association’s Annual Leadership Forum on Friday.
The conference is going ahead in the shadow of Tuesday’s mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that killed at least 21 people — including 19 students.
But guns will be banned at the event, prompting several people to point to the obvious:
Meanwhile, US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has swiftly set in motion a pair of firearms background-check bills in response to the school massacre in Texas.
But the Democrat acknowledged Congress’ unyielding rejection of previous legislation to curb the national epidemic of gun violence.
Mr Schumer implored his Republican colleagues to cast aside the powerful gun lobby and reach across the aisle for even a modest compromise bill. But no votes are being scheduled.
“Please, please, please damnit – put yourselves in the shoes of these parents just for once,” Mr Schumer said as he opened the Senate.
He threw up his hands at the idea of what might seem an inevitable outcome: “If the slaughter of schoolchildren can’t convince Republicans to buck the NRA, what can we do?”
The killing of at least 19 children at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, has laid bare the political reality that the US Congress has proven unwilling or unable to pass substantial federal legislation to curb gun violence in America.
Congress failed to approve a firearms background check bill after 20 children were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School almost a decade ago, and that signalled the beginning of the end of federal gun violence legislation.
Despite the outpouring of grief on Wednesday after the starkly similar Texas massacre, it is not at all clear there will be any different outcome.
“We are accepting this as the new normal,” said senator Chris Murphy.” “It’s our choice.”
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