The President pays his respects and calls on lawmakers to enact change
Today marks the 5th anniversary of the deadly mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Five years ago today a crazed gunman strolled into the premier nightclub in Orlando and opened fire, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others. The event was the nation's greatest loss of life in a mass shooting at the time, and now, after the Las Vegas mass shooting that claimed the lives of 60 people, it still remains the second-biggest mass shooting in American history.
The Pulse Nightclub is an LGBTQ bar and dance club, and the grounds have now become a makeshift memorial and a symbol of perseverance in the presence of hate.
And now, the venue will be officiated as such, as Congress has now voted to designate Pulse Nightclub a national memorial in the wake of the shooting that occurred 5 years ago this week.
On Wednesday night, the U.S. Senate passed the bill making it official.
The shooting at the nightclub came right after the midway point of a decade riddled with mass shootings in public places, with shooters targeting innocent victims in senseless instances of tragedy.
Since then, Pulse has gone from just a premier hotspot for LGBTQ partygoers to get out and have a good time, listen to good music, and dance the night away, to being a reminder of the fact that terrorists can strike at any moment.
And in the wake of all of this, Joe Biden has weighed in on the need for new gun legislation to try and curb these crimes that continue to happen with alarming regularity. And just today, on early Saturday morning in Austin Texas, another mass shooting took place that injured 13 people. Thankfully, no one lost their lives.
Addressing the anniversary, Biden said:
Pulse Nightclub is hallowed ground. Within minutes, the Pulse nightclub that had long been a place of acceptance and joy turned into a place of unspeakable pain and loss. Forty-nine people were there celebrating Latin night were murdered, even more injured, and countless others scarred forever – the victims were family members, partners and friends, veterans and students, young, Black, Asian and Latino – our fellow Americans.
This marks the second time President Biden has addressed the massacre, as he had done so as Vice President under the Obama administration when both men paid their respects to the dead and visited with the families who'd lost loved ones in the massacre back in 2016.
It was at that point that Biden pivoted to action. He called for stricter gun laws in an attempt to garner support for legislation that would prevent such tragedies from happening, saying:
Over the years, I have stayed in touch with families of the victims and with the survivors who have turned their pain into purpose, and who remind us that we must do more than remember victims of gun violence and all of the survivors, family members, and friends left behind; we must act.
He urged lawmakers to "do our best" to try and stop gun violence, renewing calls for a ban on assault weapons, a ban on high capacity magazines, the passing of so-called "red flag" laws, which are laws that allow for guns to be seized if a person presents an extreme risk by way of a protection order. Like restraining orders, these laws are intended to limit someone's ability to cause harm to someone else. Though to some, this is interpreted as a violation of civil liberties and the second amendment.
Red flag laws are an idea that law enforcement and lawmakers suggest will help them to stop these sorts of violent crimes before the killers strike and people are harmed.
The president also mentioned stripping gun manufacturers from protection against liability for these sorts of mass shootings. If that happened, the gun manufacturers themselves would be able to be held liable for mass shootings that were committed with their weapons.
But with a deadlocked Senate at a stalemate, it seems unlikely that any serious to our gun laws will pass. Senator Joe Manchin seems to be the roadblock the Democrats didn't anticipate. He's signaled a total unwillingness to pass most of the legislation Senate Democrats have called for, as the party scrambles to figure out a way to negotiate with or circumvent his stonewalling.