It was a somber day in Monterey Park, with rain and fog descending, as President Joe Biden mourned with a community still reeling in the aftermath of a mass shooting that claimed 11 lives not quite two months ago.
But it was also an emphatic day, one where a president with a reputation as a “comforter in chief” implored his administration and federal lawmakers alike to do more gun violence prevention.
Specifically, Biden called on Congress to re-enact a ban on assault weapons while also highlighting new executive action meant to increase background checks that he said will “accelerate and intensify this work to save lives more quickly.”
“Let’s finish the job,” Biden said to a friendly crowd packed into a brightly painted Boys & Girls Clubs of West San Gabriel Valley gymnasium. “Ban assault weapons. Do it now. Enough. Do something, do something big.”
That call for Congress to do more comes less than a year after it sent Biden a wide-ranging partisan gun violence prevention package, one that toughened requirements for younger gun purchasers and underscored efforts to remove guns from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
Is there any appetite left — especially in a Republican-controlled House — for more? That depends on who you ask.
“It’s easy to lose hope, especially if you see the obstruction that Republican members of Congress have displayed for many years,” said California Sen. Alex Padilla, noting his confidence is derived from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act being signed into law. “For the first time in 30 years, we overcame the stranglehold the gun lobby has had on Congress.”
And Congressman Jimmy Gomez, a Los Angeles Democrat who was also in Monterey Park for the president’s speech Tuesday, acknowledged it would be “tough” for any gun legislation to be taken up — much less pass — in a Republican-led House. Still, Gomez said, lawmakers should still try to find “that moment when you can get…
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