The state of New York has banned the sale of semi-automatic weapons to those under the age of 21, in an attempt to reduce violence following the recent killings by teenagers in buffalo Y Uvalde.
Until now, the minimum age to acquire these weapons was 18 years.
The governor of the state, Democrat Kathy Hochul, signed on Monday a package of measures approved in record time by the state parliamentwhich also includes a ban on selling tactical vests and protective helmets to people outside certain professions.
“The violence of firearms is an epidemic that is tearing our country apart,” said the governor, accompanied by the leaders of the House – who made the approval of the package possible – and by local authorities, such as prosecutor Letitia James.
Hochul urged the federal congress to “lead and take immediate measures” to prevent significant violence against weapons, considering that it is a “national problem”.
“Lives depend on it,” he urged.
Only last weekend, 10 deaths and more than twenty wounded were counted in a series of shootings throughout the country.
According to a CBS News poll, a majority of Americans favor stricter rules on gun ownership, with 81% supporting background checks on all potential buyers.
Faced with the wave of violence by firearms, President Joe Biden, also a Democrat, once again lashed out at Republicans who oppose restricting the sale of weapons and deplored the fact that places such as schools or hospitals “have become death camps, battlefields”.
On Sunday, the president returned to say “Enough”. “If we can’t ban assault weapons like we should, we should at least raise the age to 21” to purchase them, he tweeted.
Gun violence in USA killed more than 18,000 thousand people so far 2022, including nearly 10,300 suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The most serious incidents so far are the mass shooting by an 18-year-old white supremacist at a supermarket in Buffalo, upstate New York, on May 14, in which 10 African-Americans were killed; and the shooting 10 days later in a school of Uvaldein the southern state of Texas, at the hands of an 18-year-old, in which 19 children and two teachers died.
In 2020 there were in circulation in USA some 393 million firearms, more than the population of the country.