Biden suggests razing Texas school, goes on anti-gun tirade

US president Joe Biden has suggested razing the school where 19 children and two teachers were shot and killed last week.

President Biden told a local politician while visiting Uvalde on Sunday that the US government may provide resources to raze Robb Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers were shot and killed earlier this week.

“He said, ‘I’m not going away. I’m going to bring you resources. We’re going to look to raze that school, build a new one,’” state Senator Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, told local media.

“I can’t tell you how many little children that I’ve talked to that don’t want to go into that building. They’re just traumatised. They’re just destroyed.”

Other sites of mass shootings have been demolished in recent years.

Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman shot and killed 26 people in 2012, was torn down and replaced by a new $50 million school on the same property in Newtown, Connecticut.

School officials in Colorado were considering razing Columbine High School in 2019 due to a “morbid fascination” surrounding the building where 13 people were murdered in 1999, but they ultimately decided not to tear it down.

The congregation at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, which is about 175km east of Uvalde, voted last year to tear down the old church where a gunman opened fire in 2017, killing 26 people, according to KENS.

US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden pay their respects at a makeshift memorial outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP)

Biden also told Gutierrez that he’s committed to bringing mental health resources to the community in the wake of this week’s shooting.

“This is a community that is going to need therapy. There is one psychiatrist in Uvalde, very few mental health therapists. We’re going to change that. It is a must,” Gutierrez said.

The president visited a memorial outside of Robb Elementary School on Sunday before attending mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church then meeting with victims’ families and first responders.

Biden goes on anti-gun rant

He was back at the White House on Monday delivering a rant against ownership of what he called “high-caliber weapons” — appearing to suggest there should be restrictions on the most popular handgun in America, the 9mm pistol, and repeating a previously debunked claim that the Second Amendment prohibits ownership of cannons.

Speaking to reporters, Biden recounted a visit to a trauma hospital in New York, where he said doctors had showed him X-rays of gunshot wounds caused by various firearms.

“They said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life,” Biden said.

“A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.

“So the idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of thinking about self-protection, hunting,” the president went on.

Later in his remarks, Biden appeared to rule out the possibility of taking major executive action on guns, saying: “I can’t dictate this stuff. I can do the things I’ve done and any executive action I can take, I’ll continue to take. But I can’t outlaw a weapon. I can’t, you know, change the background checks. I can’t do that.”

US President Joe Biden speaks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Biden’s statements about 9mm pistols are in keeping with his rhetoric before entering the White House.

At a 2019 fundraiser in Seattle, for example, then-candidate Biden asked his audience: “Why should we allow people to have military-style weapons including pistols with 9mm bullets and can hold 10 or more rounds?”

According to Shooting Industry magazine, 9mm pistols accounted for 56.8 per cent of all handguns made in the US during 2019.

In all, more than 15.1 million 9mm guns were produced in this country during the 2010s. The possibility of outlawing or otherwise regulating such weapons are likely to be a non-starter among conservatives and gun rights advocates.

“Remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment, was never absolute,” Biden said. “You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weapons.”

Biden has made that claim before, most recently when he announced new regulations to stop the spread of so-called “ghost guns,” and they have been repeatedly declared false by fact-checkers.

“The Second Amendment did not place limits on individual ownership of cannons,” PolitiFact stated in April when it rated his claim false.

The website pointed out the text of the Constitution: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. ”​

Despite widespread public outrage over Tuesday’s massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the racially-motivated May 14 mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, Biden said he had not yet spoken with any Republicans about potential gun control legislation, but expressed hope for a compromise.

“I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it,” he said. “At least, that’s my hope and prayer.”

A woman cries at a makeshift memorial at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP)

Asked whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell authorising Senator John Cornyn to work with Democrats could lead to results, Biden said “I don’t know.”

“I think Senator McConnell is a rational Republican. I think Cornyn is as well,” he added. “I think there’s a recognition in their part that they — we can’t continue like this. We can’t do this.”

Without Republican support, Democrats are powerless to pass any gun legislation in the 50-50 Senate unless they manage to temporarily set aside the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold for passing most bills.

Biden’s comments came fewer than 48 hours after Vice President Kamala Harris called for an assault weapons ban after attending a funeral for Buffalo shooting victim Ruth Whitfield, 86.

“You know what an assault weapon is? You know how an assault weapon was designed?” Harris said Saturday.

“It was designed for a specific purpose – to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war with no place, no place in a civil society.”

— Fox News, New York Post

Originally published as Biden suggests razing Texas school, goes on anti-gun tirade