“The pain is obvious,” she described her meetings with the community before meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the Oval Office.
Biden said, ‘No one is left… until I’ve talked to everyone in that room. every single person. He waited till the end.”
The president said he and Ardern would talk about violence and online extremism during their meeting. New Zealand voted on a bipartisan basis in 2019 to change its gun laws after the mass shootings in Christchurch, and Ardern has been at the forefront of efforts to crack down on online extremism.
“I want to work with you on that effort and I’d like to talk to you about how those conversations were, if you’d like,” he told her.
He later added, “Our experience in this regard is certainly ours. But if there is anything we can share that is of any value, we are here to share it.”
“Most of it is preventable and the devastation is astonishing,” Biden said on Tuesday.
A small, bipartisan group of senators is meeting almost Tuesday to explore possible areas of common ground on gun reform. Lawmakers are under heavy pressure to act after the horrific shootings, but Washington has been mired in gun policy stalemate for years and Democratic efforts to reform gun laws have been repeatedly blocked by Republicans and some moderate members of their own party. . It is done. ,
Some of the measures Democrats have called for include expanded background check bills and red flag laws, which could allow law enforcement or family members to petition for a court order to temporarily injure themselves. Huh. Take guns away from persons at significant risk of being delivered. Others have guns. Biden has also called on Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
The President and First Lady paid tribute at a temporary memorial outside Robb Elementary School on Sunday. He also met with local officials, paramedics, mental health service providers, firefighters and law enforcement officials. The Bidens also attended Mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where Archbishop Gustavo García-Silar invited children from the devastated community to sit in front.
The Justice Department has announced that it is reviewing the failed law enforcement response to the shooting, which Texas officials have described as punctuated with erroneous decisions.
CNN’s Morgan Rimmer and Claire Foran contributed to this report.