Biden offers empathy, anger about Texas school shooting
President Joe Biden again tried to comfort a nation grieving after a mass shooting, urging action to counter powerful gunmakers and repeatedly questioning why the country he leads lacks the spine to stem the bloodshed.
In a prime-time address, a visibly emotional Biden asked what it would take to convince fellow lawmakers that “it’s time to act.”
“How many scores of little children who witnessed what happened, seen their friends die as if they’re in a battlefield for God’s sake?” said Biden. “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There’s a hollowness in your chest.”
“When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden said with fervor in his voice. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage?”
Ten days after a racist mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., killing 10 people in a predominantly Black community, Biden returned from his trip to Japan and South Korea to another, more deadly one. This time, at least 18 children and two adults were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, a heavily Latino town in Texas Hill Country.
Prior to landing, senior staff briefed Biden on the shooting aboard Air Force One and he called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, to offer assistance. The president also ordered flags at the White House and all federal buildings to be flown at half-staff for the rest of the week. But the mass shooting Tuesday and the thousands that preceded it followed an all-too-familiar pattern of outrage across the country followed by the expectation of stasis in Washington.
