President Joe Biden made a powerful speech on gun violence last night, and put the blame squarely where it belongs: on Republicans. Via CNN:

President Joe Biden tried to turn a string of horrific mass shootings into momentum Thursday night, imploring 10 Republican senators to join Democrats on some – any – new gun-related legislation.

The speech, which compared dead American children to US casualties in war, came on a night when fellow Democrats on a House committee passed a string of proposals that most Americans might support but have no chance of passing through a GOP blockade in the Senate. The National Rifle Association immediately rejected his proposals, but a few Senate Republicans are still negotiating with Democrats.

Biden made clear he’s willing to accept far less than the measures he prefers – an assault weapons ban – in exchange for real federal action. In the speech, he laid out some main proposals: banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines or raising the age to purchase them to 21, strengthening background checks, enacting safe storage and red flag laws, repealing the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability and addressing the mental health crisis.

Personally, if I could only get one thing done, I'd repeal the disgusting legislation that protects gun manufacturers from liability. I still have enough faith in the American legal system's ability to use lawsuits to hold gun makers responsible for their marketing, just as they did with tobacco companies and pharmaceutical firms for reckless opioid distribution.