US President Joe Biden said Tuesday after a new school shooting that most Americans find it “strange” to own assault rifles, a military-style weapon regularly used in such mass killings, AFP reported.

“Most Americans think that owning assault rifles is weird, that it’s a crazy idea. They are against it,” he told reporters when asked about Monday’s shooting in Nashville in the southern United States.

The gunman, armed with two assault rifles and a pistol, killed three 9-year-old children and three adults at the school before being fatally shot by police.

Joe Biden expressed his concern that Congress has not taken action on legal assault rifles like the popular AR-15, saying he is powerless to do anything about it.

“I used my full authority to act on my own regarding firearms. “Congress must act,” he declared. “There is nothing I can do but urge Congress to act responsibly.”

The Democrat recalled that assault rifles were banned in the US for ten years from 1994 to 2004. The measure was passed by President Bill Clinton’s administration with the support of then-Senator Joe Biden.

“The last time we banned assault rifles, the violence went down,” he said.

The United States, where crime is regular, has more individual guns than people.

AR-15s, which resemble the rifles used by US soldiers (a light semi-automatic rifle based on or similar to the Colt AR-15 design), are in high demand among enthusiasts. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms trade organization, there were more than 24 million such guns in circulation in the country in mid-2022.

• VIDEO. Film of police intervention in the case of an armed attack on a school in Nashville