- US President Joe
Biden delivered an emotional speech about theUvalde school shooting. - He invoked the loss of his family members and called for renewed weapons restrictions.
US President Joe Biden addressed the victims of the Texas elementary school mass shooting on Tuesday, appealing to parents who may have lost their children and calling for renewed restrictions on assault weapons.
"To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There's a hollowness in your chest, you feel like you're being sucked into it," Biden said. "And it's never quite the same."
Biden's first wife Neilia and baby daughter Naomi died in a car crash in 1972, and his son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, and the president has spoken openly about how the losses have affected his family.
Biden who spoke wearily while FLOTUS Dr. Jill Biden stood next to him said that parents at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas may "never have their children jump in bed and cuddle with them."
Robb Elementary School students only had two days left in the school year before Tuesday's deadly mass shooting, which left at least 19 students and two adults dead.
"When in god's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?" Biden asked viewers, recalling that ten years ago as Vice President, he lamented the loss of young life after the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012.
"The list goes on and on and the list grows," Biden said. "These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen elsewhere in the world. Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God's name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it?"
Biden added that "the gun lobby has spent two decades aggressively marketing assault weapons," and called for renewed restrictions on assault weapons.
"The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a store and buy two assault rifles is wrong," he said.