Biden announces gun control initiative during visit to Monterey Park

President Biden visited Monterey Park to announce an executive order for gun enforcement.

President Biden used his visit with the victims' families of the Monterey Park mass shooting to announce his latest executive order for gun control which  "will accelerate and intensify this work to save more lives more quickly."

Biden was in Monterey Park to console the shooting victims and the families who lost loved ones two months ago when 72-year old Huu Can Tran fatally shot 11 elders and wounded nine others who were celebrating Lunar New Year at a local dance studio last January.

He called the shooting “a tragedy that has pierced the soul of this nation” and that struck “the heart of the Asian American community.”

Monterey Park is located east of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley, home to more than half a million Asian Americans. Nine cities in the valley have Asian American  majorities.

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President Biden once again introduced hero Brandon Tsay, who disarmed the Monterey Park gunman.

Biden used the visit to announce his executive order that calls on Attorney General Merrick Garland to shore up the already existing rules for federally licensed gun dealers so they know they are required to do background checks as part of the license.

"I continue to call on Congress to require background checks for all firearm sales," Biden continued. "My executive order directs my Attorney General to take every lawful action possible — possible to move us as close as we can to universal background checks without new legislation.

"It’s just common sense to check whether someone is a felon, a domestic abuser, before they buy a gun."

The executive order also expands public awareness campaigns about the “red flag” orders that "parents, teachers, police officers, health providers, and counselors know how to flag" individuals  exhibiting violent tendencies, threatening classmates, or experiencing suicidal thoughts that make them a danger to themselves and others and temporarily remove that person’s access to firearms.

The President also said, "The executive order ramps up our efforts to hold the gun industry accountable. It’s the only outfit you can’t sue these days. It does that by calling out for an independent government study that analyzes and exposes how gun manufacturers aggressively market firearms to civilians, especially minors, including by using military imagery.

The order will also make firearms dealers more accountable and illegal gun dealers and also create a FEMA-like quick response to help victims of mass shootings with financial assistance and mental health care.

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Part of the crowd who met with President Biden during his visit to Monterey Park.

The executive order is meant to only be the first step for Biden. He is also proposing legislation that will  ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. (Applause.) I led that fight in — to ban them in 1994. In the 10 years that law was in place, mass shootings went down.

"After three years of trauma that so many of us are living with day in and day out, it's critical that we have the conversation around gun safety given what has happened," Manjusha Kulkarni, the executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance and a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, was quoted as saying by the report.

Kulkarni said in the report that around 3,000 Asian Americans are impacted by gun violence every year, with women and elderly people in the AAPI community having disproportionately experienced verbal harassment, racism, discrimination, and sometimes physical attacks.

The Asian American community needs "elected officials to rise to the challenge, and pass legislation to keep all of our communities in California and throughout the U.S. safe," she said.

"The data is clear: gun safety laws save lives," tweeted California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Filipino American. 

"We have a moral and ethical obligation to enact them. I stand with the President as he takes this necessary step toward addressing the gun violence crisis," said Bonta, who greeted Biden in Monterey Park.

Hundreds of people waited in the rain to get a glimpse of the Presidential motorcade as it drove through the city to the Boys and Girls Club where Biden met with Monterey Park residents and officials and delivered his speech.

"It takes time. I tell everyone ... it takes time," Biden said in closing. "But I promise you — I promise you the day will come when the memory of your loved one brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. The tear will never fully go away. But when you had that smile first ... that’s when you know — that’s when you know you’re going to make it — you’re going to know you’re going to make it."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

In the aftermath of California shootings, prayers and calls for national gun control laws

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Vice President Kamala Harris lays flowers at a memorial for the 11 Monterey Park shooting victims.

The first Asian American Vice President of the US, Kamala Harris, visits Monterey Park to pay respect to the victims killed at a Lunar New Year celebration. 

"I am here and have arrived in Monterey Park today to express our deepest condolences and sorrow for the violent and tragic and useless thing that happened here," said Harris, a native Californian. 

"You know, we’ve already had, in our country, this year already — we’re in January — it’s estimated over 40 mass killings already," Harris said in a statement."

As the Asian American community is struggles through these tragedies with candlelight vigils and makeshift memorials, Harris took the opportunity to advocate for action after the mourning and prayers.

"California has been courageous as a leader on the issue of smart gun safety laws. But we also need Congress to act, because, truly, if we are to have a uniform approach that is a statement of where we, as a nation, I think — where we are on these issues, then Congress must act so that we can get at least one step closer to what is right and what is reasonable, understanding that to do so is to fully support the Second Amendment, but to understand we need reasonable gun safety laws in our country," said Harris.

Meanwhile, authorities released the names of the dance hall victims, all Asian American elderly. They had gathered at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio to celebrate the start of Lunar New Year festivities. The female victims were named as Xiujuan Yu, 57; Hongying Jian, 62; Lilan Li, 63; Mymy Nhan, 65; Muoi Dai Ung, 67; and Diana Man Ling Tom, 70. The male victims were identified as Wen-Tau Yu, 64; Valentino Marcos Alvero, 68; Ming Wei Ma, 72; Yu-Lun Kao, 72; and Chia Ling Yau, 76.

CHINESE FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Candles were lit in a San Francisco Chinatown memorial for the shooting victims.

All of the victims were of Chinese descent, two Taiwanese and one, Alvero, was a Filipino American.

The Chinese Consulate in San Francisco confirmed that five of the victims in Half Moon Bay shooting, which occurred Monday, are Chinese as well as the alleged shooter, Chunli Zhao, who surrendered to authorities hours after the shootings.

The Half Moon Bay victims have been identified as Yetao Bing, 43, Qizhong Cheng, 66, Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50, Aixiang Zhang, 74, Jingzhi Lu, 64, and Zhishen Liu, 73, according to the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office.

In an interview conducted in Mandarin, Zhao told NBC Bay Area’s Janelle Wang that he was bullied at work and had issues with the victims. He has been in the US for 11 years and has a green card.

Despite having some of the nation's toughest gun control laws which has resulted in a lower rate of gun death than the national average, it’s been impossible to insulate it from tragedies like the ones seen this week. California's Gov. Gavin Newsom have been looking to Washington to place protections in areas that state policies simply can’t cover.

“We can figure this out — we can,” said Newsom said in an emotional statement after visiting Half Moon Bay. “We know what to do. It’s not complicated. We do. And we don’t have to do this again and again and again.”

However, California laws can't keep the transport of weapons across state lines. “We can’t do this alone,” Newsom said. “And with all due respect, we feel like we are.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.