During an address Tuesday night, President Biden blamed the Uvalde, Texas mass shooting on “the gun lobby” and called for sweeping gun control. The Ross Elementary School massacre left two adults and 18 children dead, as well as the gunman’s grandmother. The gunman, an 18-year-old area high school student, was killed by responding law enforcement.
“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?” Biden said in remarks from the White House.
“It’s been 3,448 days — 10 years — since I stood up at… a grade school in Connecticut where another gunman massacred 26 people including 20 first graders at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Since then, there have been over 900 incidents of gunfire reported on school grounds.”
“The list grows when you include mass shootings at places like movie theaters, houses of worship and as we saw just 10 days ago at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York,” Biden added. “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.”
The president added that he and his supporters “will not forget” those who oppose their gun control measures. “It’s time to turn this pain into action. … It’s time for those who obstruct, delay or block the common-sense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget,” Biden said of “the gun lobby.”
Biden's message for "those who obstruct or delay or block the 'common sense gun laws'":
"We will not forget." pic.twitter.com/p3pXMqoQjI
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 25, 2022
“The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons, it’s just wrong. What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for except to kill someone? Deer aren’t running through the forest with Kevlar vests on for God’s sake,” Biden continued. “It’s just sick. And the gun manufacturers have spent 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 gunman, Salvador Ramos, allegedly killed his grandmother before launching his attack on Ross Elementary School. He carried out the massacre with two rifles he bought on his 18th birthday, law enforcement officials said.
Border Patrol sources told Fox News’ Bill Melugin that an off-duty agent took down the gunman. “I’m told he entered with a tactical team while TX LEOs were engaged w/ barricaded shooter,” wrote Melugin in a tweet. “Agent was injured.”
“I’m told that a BORTAC agent went in with his technical group with other agents. They formed a stacking maneuver while Texas law enforcement was engaged with the shooter, who was barricaded,” Melugin later said on Fox News. The agent was injured but was able to walk out of the school.
Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke echoed Biden’s ominous “we will not forget” line in a tweet.
We won’t forget. https://t.co/e0yMBQXzrU
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) May 25, 2022
O’Rourke gleefully said that he planned on confiscating AR-15’s while running for the U.S. Senate, but has since walked back that claim.