The address will take place at 19:30 ET from the White House Cross Hall. Biden plans to discuss “the recent tragic massacres and the need for Congress to act to pass common sense laws to fight the epidemic of life-threatening gun violence,” the White House said in a statement.
The remarks will be Biden’s most outspoken speech on guns since last week’s Texas Primary School massacre.
Since then, a series of additional mass shootings have unfolded in states across the country, including a medical center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Wednesday. The shooting left five dead, including the shooter.
In the hours after the Texas massacre, Biden delivered an emotional seven-minute speech at the White House, calling the repeated killings of Americans with weapons “sick.”
“Why? Why are we ready to live with this carnage? Why do we keep allowing this to happen?” he asked.
Since then, however, Biden has only selectively entered the arms control debate, disapproving of any specific legislative action to prevent further massacres.
On Wednesday, the president expressed scanty optimism that Congress would agree on new arms control legislation, even as a bipartisan group of senators meets to consider options.
“I served in Congress for 36 years. “I’m never entirely sure,” Biden said when asked if he believed lawmakers would agree on new gun laws.
“It simply came to our notice then. So I don’t know, “Biden said. “I have not been involved in the negotiations as they are ongoing.”
The lukewarm response was an indication that Biden feared being too closely associated with Capitol Hill’s nascent efforts to reach a compromise on arms control.
While Biden said Tuesday he would talk to gun lawmakers, the White House later said he would only join when the time came.
Both Biden and his advisers have suggested that they have exhausted their ability to take executive action to deal with weapons, although they continue to explore ways of unilateral action.
“There is the Constitution. I can’t dictate these things. I can do the things I have done, and I will continue to do whatever executive action I can take. But I can’t ban weapons, I can’t change background checks. I can’t do that, “he said Monday.
Speaking a day after comforting families in Texas, Biden expressed limited hope that some Republicans, such as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and one of his main allies, Sen. John Cornin of Texas can be persuaded to support some kind of new gun laws.
“I don’t know, I think there is an awareness on the part of rational Republicans, and I think McConnell is a rational Republican, and so is Cornin. There is an acknowledgment on their part that they can’t go on like this,” he said.
McConnell has authorized Cornin to begin talks with Democrats on some sort of legislation to prevent further mass shootings, although discussions are still in the early stages.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who attended a bipartisan gun security meeting on Wednesday, said he and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham were negotiating changes to red flag laws and still had “significant” work to do.
Senators are considering tightening state laws that allow authorities to confiscate weapons from individuals considered risky, known as red flag laws.
Blumenthal called the conversation “productive and encouraging” and said negotiators “everyone talks several times a day”.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would introduce legislation banning military-style assault weapons on the floor next week as the hall moves to tackle gun violence.
This story has been updated with additional reports.
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