One year after 19 children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, President Joe Biden will mark the grim anniversary by calling on Congress to help end the “epidemic” of gun violence nationwide, according to the White House.
Biden, joined by First Lady Jill Biden, will speak Wednesday afternoon to honor the victims of Texas’ deadliest school shooting, which came just days after a gunman killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
“The president will remember those lost in Uvalde and reiterate his call for Republicans in Congress to act and help stop the epidemic of gun violence that has become the number one killer of kids in America,” a White House official said.
Both shootings led to the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major gun safety legislation signed into law in decades. The law toughens background checks for the youngest gun buyers, provides funding for states to enhance crisis prevention programs and put in place so-called “red flag” laws, which allow authorities to take firearms away from people determined to be dangerous, criminalized straw purchases and arms trafficking, and other provisions.
While the passage of the bill was a major victory for gun safety advocates, the country has still been plagued by mass shootings, including at an elementary school in Nashville, Tenn., in March that saw three students and three teachers killed, and at a Dallas-area shopping mall earlier this month that saw 8 killed and 7 others wounded.
The bill also fell short of addressing some of the other issues that Biden, Democrats in Congress and other advocates have called for, including universal background checks and a ban on military style semi-automatic firearms.
“While he’s very appreciative of what Congress was able to do, there’s so much more to be done,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said about the Uvalde shooting anniversary at a briefing on Monday. “We need to see Congress do something more, do more, put forward some commonsense gun reform. That’s what these families deserve. That’s what they should be able to see.”
Those reforms were not able to get through Congress while Democrats controlled both chambers, so it’s highly unlikely they could pass a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Biden in March signed an executive order aimed at enhancing background checks for gun purchases, but has called on Congress repeatedly to do more to address the scourge of gun violence.
In his remarks last year in the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting, Biden slammed lobbyists, pro-gun lawmakers and “those who obstruct or delay or block the commonsense gun laws.”
“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone, or the courage to deal with and stand up to the lobbies?” Biden asked at the time.
“It’s time to turn this pain into action for every parent, for every citizen in this country. We have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: it’s time to act,” he added.
“For those who obstruct or delay or block the commonsense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget,” Biden said last year. “We can do so much more. We have to do more.”
