Joe Biden has been heckled by the father of a mass shooting victim during a White House event celebrating the passage of a federal gun safety law.
The US president was delivering a speech on the South Lawn on Monday when he was interrupted by Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son, Joaquin, was among 14 students and three staff members killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
“We have to do more than that!” Oliver shouted, among other remarks, while standing up and wearing dark sunglasses, grey beard and purple jacket.
At first Biden told him, “Sit down, you’ll hear what I have to say,” but then the president relented and said, “Let him talk, let him talk, OK?”
By then, however, security had already stepped in to take Oliver away.
Earlier on Monday, Oliver had made clear that he objected to the event being billed as a celebration in the aftermath of a mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on 24 May.
He wrote on Twitter: “The word CELEBRATION has no space in a society that saw 19 kids massacred just a month ago.”
The confrontation underlined simmering frustration with Biden, accused of failing to meet the moment not only on guns but abortion, climate and other issues. A New York Times/Siena College poll published on Monday put his approval rating at 33%, with 64% of Democratic voters saying the party should nominate a different candidate for president in 2024.
The White House gave Biden an opportunity to respond to the critics by showcasing the first major federal gun safety bill in three decades, which he signed into law last month. He was joined in bright summer sunshine by survivors and family members of those slain during mass shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tucson, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe, Uvalde, Buffalo, Highland Park and others.
The new law includes provisions to help states keep guns out of the hands of those deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. It also prohibits gun sales to those convicted of abusing unmarried intimate partners and cracks down on gun sales to buyers convicted of domestic violence.
But the scale of the challenge was laid bare when, just 16 days after the law took effect, a gunman in Highland Park, Illinois, killed seven people and wounded more than 30 others at an Independence Day parade, fueling the discontent of Oliver and other activists who want to see Biden move faster and further.
Biden hailed the law as “real progress” and said “lives will be saved today and tomorrow because of this” but acknowledged that “more has to be done”. He said: “It matters, it matters, but it’s not enough and we all know that.”
Noting how schools, places of worship and even a Fourth of July parade had been turned into “killing fields”, the president called for greater action from Congress, where Republicans loyal to the gun lobby have repeatedly blocked reforms.
He reiterated his pleas for a ban on assault weapons, expanded background checks on gun buyers and safe storage laws that would impose personal liability on those who do not safely store their weapons.
“We are living in a country awash in weapons of war,” Biden said with palpable anger. “Guns are the number one killer of children in the United States, more than car accidents, more than cancer.”
He earned applause as he insisted that the second amendment to the federal constitution, which protects the right to bear arms, should not supersede others. “With rights come responsibilities,” Biden said. “Yes, there is 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, at a playground, at a house of worship, at a store, at a workplace, a nightclub, a festival, in our neighborhoods, in our streets. The right to bear arms is not an absolute right that dominates all others.”
Among the hundreds of guests on the south lawn were a bipartisan group of senators who crafted and supported the legislation, as well as local-level officials including the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, and Highland Park mayor, Nancy Rotering.
But the director of the campaign group Guns Down America, Igor Volsky, wasn’t wholly impressed by the White House’s framing of the gathering.
Volsky told the Associated Press news agency: “There’s simply not much to celebrate here. It’s historic, but it’s also the very bare minimum of what Congress should do.
“And as we were reminded by the shooting on July fourth, and there’s so many other gun deaths that have occurred since then. The crisis of gun violence is just far more urgent.”
He added: “We have a president who really hasn’t met the moment, who has chosen to act as a bystander on this issue. For some reason the administration absolutely refuses to have a senior official who can drive this issue across government.”
