Biden said the package he signed into law represented an “important start” but more needed to be done to curb the alarming rate of shootings.
“Now is the time to energize this movement because it is our duty to the people of the nation. We owe it to the families in Buffalo, where a grocery store turned into a killing field. That’s what we owe to the families in Uvalde, where there’s an elementary school. That’s what we owe to those families in Highland Park, where the 4th of July parade turned into a killing field,” Biden said.
The president continued: “This is what we owe to all those families represented here today and across the country over the past many years in our schools, places of worship, workplaces, stores, music festivals, nightclubs and so many other everyday places, which became killing fields.”
The president hosted victims of mass shootings from Columbine to Highland Park at a White House event marking the federal gun safety legislation he signed into law last month. The new law is the most significant federal law to address gun violence since the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.
But the president acknowledged Monday that the law fell far short of what he and his party had advocated to stop the alarming rate of mass shootings in the United States.
“It won’t save every life from the epidemic of gun violence, but if this law had been in place years ago, even this last year, lives would have been saved.” It matters. It matters. But it’s not enough, and we all know that,” the president said.
Biden was interrupted during his speech by Manuel Oliver, whose son was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Oliver has been critical of the administration’s actions against gun violence and said the new gun safety law doesn’t go far enough.
The White House said the event was attended by mass shooting survivors from Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tucson, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe, Uvalde, Buffalo and Highland Park, as well as “survivors and family members of the everyday acts of gun violence that doesn’t make national headlines.” Cabinet members and elected officials from communities affected by gun violence also attended.
The president said he has spent so much time with the families of shooting victims over the years that he has become “personal friends” with many. He thanked the families for their relentless advocacy for tougher gun laws “to make sure other families don’t experience the same loss and pain.”
The president said he was determined to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which face strong odds of passing Congress given the thin Democratic majorities in both chambers, saying: “I’m not going to stop until I let’s do ”
Biden touted the investments the new legislation makes in community violence prevention, including $750 million to help states implement and manage crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage red flag programs — which, through court orders, can temporarily prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms — and for other crisis intervention programs such as mental health courts, drug courts and veterans courts.
It also closes a long-standing loophole in domestic violence law known as the boyfriend loophole, which bars people who have been convicted of domestic violence offenses against spouses, partners with whom they have children or partners, with whom they cohabited, from having weapons. The old laws did not include intimate partners who could not live together, be married or share children.
Just before signing the law last month, Biden praised the families of gun violence victims he met with. He said their activism in the face of loss made a difference.
“I want to especially thank the families that Jill and I (met), many of whom we sat with for hours across the country. There are so many we have come to know who have lost their souls to an epidemic of gun violence. They’ve lost their child, their husband, their wife,” Biden said.
“Nothing will fill that void in their hearts. But they took the road so other families won’t have the experience and pain and trauma they had to go through.”
Titled the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the bill was introduced by Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona.
This came after the recent mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, which was in a predominantly black neighborhood.
This story was updated with additional developments on Monday.
CNN’s Donald Judd contributed to this report.
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