US president Joe Biden has said he owns four shotguns but that all are locked up securely.
At a ceremony at the White House on Monday, Mr Biden again urged that assault weapons be banned and called for gun owners to ensure that their firearms are kept under lock and key. He also repeated a call for high-capacity magazines to be prohibited.
Speaking at an event to mark new gun control legislation he signed into law last month, Mr Biden said he had four guns. He said two shotguns were his own and two others had belonged to his late son, Beau. He said all the weapons were locked away.
“If you own a weapon, you have a responsibility to secure it and keep it under lock and key,” he said. “Responsible gun owners agree no one else should have access to it. So lock it up, have trigger locks. And if you don’t and something bad happens, you should be held responsible.”
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He welcomed the new gun controls agreed by a bipartisan group of Democrat and Republican politicians in the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.
‘Moral choice’
Mr Biden said that while the new law represented progress and would save lives, it did not go far enough and more needed to be done. “It matters, but it’s not enough. And we all know that.”
The president said the United States was “awash in weapons of war” and faced a “moral choice” on gun violence. “Assault weapons need to be banned,” he said.
Mr Biden said guns were the number-one killer of children in the United States – responsible for more deaths than car accidents or cancer. “Yes, there’s a right to bear arms – but we also have a right to live freely without fear for our lives in a grocery store, in a classroom, in a playground, in a house of worship, in a store, in a workplace, a nightclub, a festival, in our neighbourhoods and our streets.”
It was not weapons earmarked for hunting that were being used in mass shootings, he said, but rather guns that had been designed for war. He said rounds fired from an assault rifle moved twice as fast as bullets fired from handguns and “maximise the damage done” to people.
“Human flesh and bone is just torn apart and, as difficult as it is to say, that’s why so many people and so many in this audience – and I apologise for having to say it – need to provide DNA samples to identify the remains of their children. Think of that,” he said.
Mr Biden was interrupted briefly during his remarks by Manuel Oliver, the father of school shooting victim Joaquin Oliver in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, who protested at the lack of progress in dealing with gun violence.
