President Joe Biden championed his administration’s work on gun reform during a speech Tuesday while attacking his predecessor, Donald Trump, and his boast that he had done “nothing on guns” while in the White House.
Biden made the remarks at an annual conference for Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation’s largest gun control group. In his speech, the president reiterated his calls for a ban on assault-style weapons and urged voters to cast a ballot in November to “overcome the unrelenting opposition of the gun lobby.”
“More children are killed in America by guns than cancer and car accidents combined,” Biden said Tuesday, also calling for lawmakers to pass a bill requiring universal background checks for firearm purchases. “My predecessor told the NRA convention recently, he’s proud of, quote, ‘I did nothing on guns when I was president.’ And by doing nothing, he made the situation considerably worse.”
“That’s why Everytown, why all of you here today are so damned important,” the president went on. “We need you. We need you to overcome the unrelenting opposition of the gun lobby, gun manufacturers, so many politicians when they oppose commonsense gun legislation.”
The Biden administration is hoping to use his work on gun reform to galvanize voters during the election, particularly at the ballot box in some battleground states, according to The Associated Press. That includes highlighting 2022’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which expanded key reforms meant to make it more difficult for some people to obtain firearms.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, recently addressed thousands of NRA members at the group’s annual meeting in Texas last month and pledged to protect gun rights if he wins reelection in November. The former president said he would “roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment” and claimed that American gun owners were “under siege.”
The NRA recently endorsed his candidacy.
Biden added Tuesday that he remained frustrated with Republican opposition to gun reform, pointing to common refrains calling for “thoughts and prayers” after tragic shootings.
“We all want to drop them off at a house of worship, a mall, a movie theater, a school, without worrying it’s the last time I’m going to get to see them,” the president said, noting both Republicans and Democrats wanted their families to be safe. “We all want our kids to have the freedom to learn how to read and write in school instead of learn how to duck and cover, for God’s sake.”
Biden’s remarks came just hours after his son, Hunter Biden, was found guilty of illegally owning a gun in 2018. He was convicted of three felony counts and faces up to 25 years in prison, although he could see a much smaller penalty as he is a first-time offender.
The president has said he will not pardon his son and will “accept the outcome of the case.” He did not address the verdict in his speech on Tuesday.