Biden to address major gun violence prevention group as he tackles a key election issue

By Arlette Saenz, CNN

Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden will address a major gun violence prevention conference in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, nearly two years after he signed the first major federal gun safety legislation in decades.

The appearance, first shared with CNN, comes as the White House and the Biden campaign have sought to promote the president’s work to tackle gun violence — an issue his team believes resonates with key blocs of voters, including women, young people and Latino communities.

Biden is set to speak at Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund’s “Gun Sense University,” an annual conference bringing together gun violence survivors, volunteers and advocates for training on organizing efforts. Attendees will include volunteers from Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, two groups founded in the wake of major mass shootings in schools. The volunteers will fan out across Capitol Hill for meetings with lawmakers to push for further gun safety laws on Tuesday.

“President Biden’s appearance at Gun Sense University is just the latest example of his decades-long commitment to solving America’s gun violence crisis,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “When it comes to gun safety, President Biden understands that this is truly a life-or-death issue, and our volunteers are proud to stand alongside the Biden-Harris Administration.”

The president’s speech will take place two weeks before the anniversary of the signing of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, comprehensive gun safety legislation that received Democratic and Republican support in the wake of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.

The legislation enhanced background checks and boosted money for mental health programs. The administration this year tapped a provision in the law to attempt to close the so-called “gun show loophole.” But the bill fell short of achieving some of Democrats’ long-sought-after gun reforms, including passing an assault weapons ban that Biden has vowed to pursue if reelected.

“I’m going to go back and once again ban assault weapons in America,” Biden said at a rally in Philadelphia last month. “I did it once; I’ll do it again.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, who leads the White House’s Office of Gun Violence, has focused on a series of gun violence prevention events this week around National Gun Violence Awareness Day, including a Maryland campaign event Friday with Angela Alsobrooks, the state’s Democratic nominee for Senate.

Harris met Thursday with six survivors of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School who are now set to graduate from high school this year.

“Yesterday, I met with survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting who are now graduating from high school,” Harris posted on X with photos of the meeting. “Emma, Grace, Matt, Ella, Henry, and Lilly: Thanks for your strength, courage, and leadership.”

The students were all first-graders when a gunman opened fire at the Newtown, Connecticut, school, killing 20 of their fellow classmates and six adults.

Biden wrote a letter to the Uvalde community last month on the two-year anniversary of that shooting, which killed 19 students and two teachers. He praised the efforts of the families and communities to press for greater action to address gun violence, saying they “have made their voices heard — and our country has listened.”

The Biden campaign released an ad coinciding with the anniversary to contrast the president’s record on guns against that of former President Donald Trump, who has vowed to “roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment” if he wins a second term.

The ad in Spanish and English ran on digital platforms in the swing states of Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, with the ad buy specifically targeting Latino voters. The Biden campaign believes the tragic shooting in Uvalde and more broadly the issue of gun violence resonates across the Latino community.

A CNN/SSRS poll conducted in April found nearly half of registered voters — 48% — said gun policy will be extremely important to their presidential vote in November. A Gallup survey last year found 56% of US adults believe gun laws in the country should be stricter.

CNN’s Donald Judd and MJ Lee contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.