Joe Biden attacks Bernie Sanders over 'immoral' gun immunity at scene of America's worst mass shooting

Joe Biden has attacked Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders for voting for “immoral” legislation that granted immunity to gun manufacturers.

Speaking at a gun violence event in Las Vegas, site of the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, he said the Vermont senator and others had handed the industry one of the “most egregious special interest giveaways”.

“It’s just flat out immoral,” he said. “Too many Republicans voted for that bill, and some Democrats too, including Bernie Sanders.”

He added: “Anyone should be able to walk into a court of law and demand that gun manufacturers, with their their enormous profits, be held accountable for the enormous carnage they inflict.”

Mr Biden, 77, was speaking about the 2005 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which has enabled gun manufacturers to avoid prosecution when crimes have been committed with their products.

Recently, families who lost children in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, won what could be a significant legal victory when a court in Connecticut ruled that a lawsuit against Remington, the manufacturer of the weapon used, could be sued.

Mr Biden also attacked Mr Sanders for failing to support on five occasions the Brady Bill, the 1994 measure that permits background checks. Mr Sanders supported the immunity measure as a congressman, but has since said he had changed his mind.

He said politicians who opposed opposed gun control “cowards” but would not respond to questions whether he thought Mr Sanders was a coward. He also would not comment on whether he considered Mr Sanders’ previous views to be immoral.

Asked in he accepted Mr Sanders’ claim that he had changed his mind, he said: “I do think he’s changed his views and I’m happy about that.”

The Associated Press said that Mr Biden’s comments, made at the Desert Breeze Community Centre in the company of gun regulation activists and people who had lost loved ones, came as his campaign released a web video of the Vermont senator telling a radio caller after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre that allowing people to sue gun manufacturers would do no good.

Mr Biden noted that 100 people lost their lives to gun violence every day im the United States, a total of 150,000 since 2005. He pointed out the deadliest tool place in the city where he was speaking – the October 2017 shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip that 58 people and wounded more than 400.

Among those supporting Mr Biden’s bid for the presidency was Stephanie Pizzoferrato, from Las Vegsas, whose four-old daughter, Dayla, was killed by a stray biullet in 2011. She remembered taking the decision to turn off life support the day after her child was fatally struck, and nurses handing her the braids of her child’s hair.

“I know what it means to lose a loved one and I am doing everything I can to enact gun safety legislation,” she said.

Barack Obama said said congress’s failure to pass meaningful gun reform after Sandy Hook had been “shameful”.

Mr Biden, who said Donald Trump and the Republican leadership was “owned by the NRA”, said he would act swiftly if elected.

“I’ve looked in the eyes of too many parents who’ve lost their children to gun violence,” he said. “I’ve looked in the eyes of brave young people who’ve survived school shootings. I promised them and I promise all of you, I will never never give up this fight.”