Helpless or Aimless

Biden is spinning the blame on Republicans for his own failures

The US, which has recently seen an unspeakable tragedy and call it a mass shooting, is, in fact, gun terror. The victims are school children, 19 of them were killed in their school as an 18-year-old gunman went on a rampage and this happened in Texas. The attacker has been shot dead but this killing spree is far from over.

When innocent American children were being shot in a school, their president Joe Biden was returning from Japan. He was told that 19 children, some as young as seven, were killed in the incident. When Biden landed in the US he said: “What struck me during the 17-hour flight was that these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why? They have mental health problems, they have domestic disputes in other countries, and they have people who are lost, but these kinds of incidents never happen with the kind of frequency that happened in America, why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”

Good questions but shouldn’t Biden be the one answering them? He is after all the president. The person responsible for implementing and enforcing the law of the land.

He is the head of state, the head of the American government. In other words, Biden should be taking responsibility for the breakdown of the rule of law in America. Instead, he is hiding behind rhetorical questions that why do we keep letting this happen?

Indeed, he is feigning helplessness about what’s happening under his watch. Recently, during the QUAD meeting in Tokyo, Biden had a lot to say, he lectured Asia on the rule of law, he preached Putin on the need for peace, he spoke about the law and order in the Indo-Pacific but what about his own country? Where is the law and order? Where are the rules today?

Teenagers in America are carrying guns, children are being killed in schools, and there are hate crimes and racist attacks at supermarkets. All of this is happening in Biden’s own country but he’s busy telling others how to follow the rules. Biden’s America is a country where one is more likely to be killed by a teenager than a terrorist, and all the president has to offer is rhetoric.

He is right, America’s gun terror is indeed unmatched. It does not happen anywhere else in the world but Biden was supposed to be the one resolving this problem, not complaining about it. Gun control was central to his presidential campaign. Biden said he empathised with the people and he understood their pain. He pitched himself as a people’s president someone who lost a wife even a grown-up son.

Today, parents in Biden’s America are devastated. They send their children to school one morning only to bring their bodies back. It’s the worst tragedy and pain that any parent can suffer and parents in America are suffering it over and over and over again.

What happened in Texas was the 27th incident of school shooting this year and Joe Biden still wants to know why. Well, maybe it’s because the Biden administration has failed and Joe Biden is central to this failure.

He has been in office for 16 months now. He has had enough and more time to tighten gun laws. He has had enough time to deliver on his promises but today he’s standing in front of the mourning parents trying to pass the buck to the people who elected him to office.

Biden said, “Where in the God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with them, stand up to the lobbies. It’s a time to turn this pain into action for every parent, for every citizen in this country. We have to make it clear to every elected official in this country; it’s time to act.”

It’s a misplaced pitch because America has acted enough. Year after year, American’s have participated in opinion polls. They have voiced their objection to gun laws a lot of them have. Americans have elected a president who promised to be tough on guns. It’s that president who has not kept his word.

Today, he is spinning the blame on republicans; blaming them for blocking amendments to gun laws, for banning abortion and for everything wrong happening in America.

He further added that “it’s time for those who obstruct or delay or block the common-sense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget. We can do so much more. We have to do more.”

The Republicans obstruct he says and he’s right, but what does the president do? Where is his accountability? Why has he not used his executive powers to protect his people? It’s Biden who needs to do more. He is a career politician, this is his second stint at the White House.

He was President Obama’s point person for gun laws, he saw Obama turn to executive actions, to try and crack down on gun terror. Biden in fact had overseen this as Obama’s deputy. He led a team, he proposed dozens of executive actions on gun control. When Biden ran for office, he promised to bring all of this experience to the table but today he claims to be helpless, at the mercy of the legislature.

He wants to solve Ukraine’s problems, he’s ready to fight Taiwan’s war, he wants to lead the indo-pacific into peace but he won’t protect school children in America who are being shot dead.

Either Biden has bent his knee to the gun lobby or he thinks that America is so desensitised to the gun terror that the death of 19 school children will have no political aftermath whatsoever.

Either way, it speaks volumes about the failure of Biden’s administration and of a society where the right to carry guns seems is more important than the right to life.