The annual meeting of the gun lobby, held just days after the deadly shooting of 19 children, was surrounded by protesters demanding firearms control.
Anti-gun protesters picketed the NRA’s annual conference in Houston, Texas, on Friday, demanding that the government ban so-called “assault weapons.” The conference came three days after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at a Texas elementary school, but speakers and attendees insisted they would not surrender the right to bear arms.
A teenage gunman shot and killed 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalade, Texas on Tuesday, before shooting an off-duty Border Patrol agent. On Friday, meanwhile, 280 miles (450 km) away in Houston, the National Rifle Association (NRA) began its annual conference.
The event, which has always been criticized by anti-gun groups, drew hundreds of protesters. Holding the mark on allegations of having NRA “Blood [its] Hand “ They hack attendees and give slogans “Shame” Those who enter the gun lobby assembly. Across the street, a group of children stood in silent protest, with names and pictures of the victims hanging around their necks.
Another group carried a baby-sized coffin around the convention center.
The group walks around the NRA Convention with a baby-shaped casket and takes pictures of the children killed in the avalanche. “Protect our children, not guns!” pic.twitter.com/ugyXx6EfUT
– Mike Hicksenbagh (@Mike_Hixenbagh) May 27, 2022
The protests painted some familiar names in liberal politics. Survivors of school shootings have become workers David Hogg Join protesters outside the convention and announce several anti-gun rallies for the next month. Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, rejected the Republican argument that teachers should be armed to prevent shootings in schools.
“More guns equals violence” He told Reuters. “Assault weapons should be banned.”
‘Assault weapon’ is a controversial term. Although the gun industry says it refers to fully automatic firearms, which have been banned in most cases since 1986, the anti-gun lobby uses the term to describe long rifles such as military firearms, such as the semi-automatic AR-15. The weapon was banned by former President Bill Clinton’s administration in 1994, but the ban ended in 2004 and an attempt to restore it failed during Barack Obama’s presidency in 2013.
In the overwhelming majority of gun crimes in the United States, handguns are used, not rifles, like the AR-15, most of which are illegally owned.
Since Joe Biden took office last year, he has imposed regulations on certain pistol grips and cracked down on the sale of missing ‘ghost guns’, but has not pressured Congress to impose a comprehensive ban on any firearms.
The Uvalade massacre, the deadliest school shooting in the United States since the 2012 Sandy Hook assassination, has revived the nationwide debate over politicians, entertainers and even gun laws. Sports franchise Demand for repeal of the Second Amendment.
However, speakers at the NRA conference were adamant that banning guns was not the answer. Former President Donald Trump has condemned this “Deeply wicked, violent and emotionally disturbed youth” Those who have done “A contagion of schools” From the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, was responsible for the shootings “Broken family, missing father, church attendance declining,” Violent video games and “Chronic isolation.”
