Texas Elementary School Shooting: What President Biden Said

Ololade Adeyanju/

President Joe Biden delivered a brief but powerful address in response to the shooting yesterday night’s killing of 19 kids and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos.

Biden while grieving for the victims and their families, also tore into gun manufacturers and lobbyists like the National Rifle Association (NRA) for their opposition to “common sense gun laws.”

“I had hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this. Again. Another massacre,” Biden said.

Speaking from the White House Roosevelt Room with First Lady Jill Biden clad in black by his side, the president said, “Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful innocent, second, third, fourth graders. And how many scores of little children who witnessed what happen – see their friends die as if they’re on a battlefield, for God’s sake?”

His remarks came less than two hours after Biden returned from his first presidential trip to Asia.

“As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?” he questioned.

Biden recalled the numerous mass shootings over the last decade, including visiting Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman killed 26 people including 20 children while he was vice president. He also remarked on the this month’s mass shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York.

“I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage. I spent my career as a senator and vice president working to pass common sense gun laws,” he said. 

Biden claimed the ability for a teenage gunman to be able to “walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong.”

“What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for except to kill someone?” Biden questioned.

He then accused gun makers of spending “two decades aggressively marketing assault weapons, which make them the most and largest profit.”

“For God’s sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry,” the president said.

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