(CNN) Joe Biden said he will push to ban assault weapons if elected president in 2020 -- a pledge that comes as the nation debates how to curb gun violence following two deadly mass shootings that killed more than 30 people in Ohio and Texas.

The former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate declared in an op-ed published in The New York Times on Sunday that the United States has a "huge problem with guns," and that assault weapons, which he defined as "military-style firearms designed to fire rapidly," are a threat to US national security.

"If we cannot rise to meet this moment, it won't just be a political failure. It will be a moral one. It will mean that we accept the next inevitable tragedy," Biden wrote. "That we are desensitized to children running from schools and bodies littering parking lots, that our outpouring of thoughts and prayers will grow increasingly hollow."

The 2020 presidential candidate also wrote that anyone who "pretends there's nothing we can do is lying" and that holding that view should be "disqualifying" for those seeking the White House.

"There is so much we can do -- practical, sensible steps that draw broad support among the American people," he said, also writing that there is "overwhelming data" that shootings committed with assault weapons result in more deaths than shootings committee with other kinds of guns.

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