After Texas school massacre, Joe Biden vows to keep up pressure for gun regulation
- US president responds to desperate calls for weapons reform in the wake of school mass shooting
- Gun-control advocates hoped the shock over the Uvalde tragedy might finally prompt politicians to act
Under pressure to act after the latest US mass shooting that left 21 people dead, President Joe Biden vowed Monday to push for stricter gun regulation, an uphill battle given the Democrats’ narrow congressional majority.
“I’ve been pretty motivated all along” to act on guns, Biden told reporters in Washington.
“I’m going to continue to push,” he said, adding, “I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it.”
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has been working through the Memorial Day weekend to pursue possible areas of compromise.
They reportedly were focusing on laws to raise the age for gun purchases or to allow police to remove guns from people deemed at risk – but not on an outright ban on high-powered rifles like the weapon used Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas or the one used 10 days earlier in Buffalo, New York.
In Uvalde, grieving mourners were holding their first wakes Monday for some of the 19 children and two teachers gunned down last week at a junior school by a local 18-year-old man who was then killed by police.