In a letter sent to the victims’ families of the 2022 shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, President Joe Biden promised that he was committed to ramping up prevention of gun violence.
In his letter, which was dated on Friday, May 24 — the two-year anniversary of the shooting — Biden wrote that he and First Lady Jill Biden visited the town after the tragedy.
He wrote:
“When we met with the families, they had the same message we hear in the aftermath of all too many mass shootings: Do something. In the two years since, they have made their voices heard — and our country has listened.”
Biden also shared condolences in his letter for the two teachers and 19 students who were killed at Robb Elementary School. He added that he prays that the families are able to somehow find comfort remembering the people they lost.
In his letter, Biden also noted that only a few months after the shooting took place, he signed a bipartisan gun safety law that included provisions meant to close different loopholes to purchasing a firearm, while also expanding background checks.
He lauded the launch of the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which began in 2023, as well as renewed a call for Congress to take action on gun reform.
Biden specifically referred to legislation that would implement universal background checks, a ban on all high-capacity magazines and assault weapons, as well as a national red flag law.
As he wrote in his letter last week:
“In the last two years, the people of Uvalde have turned their pain into purpose to demand progress for our Nation. I know we have a long road ahead of us, but the courage, strength and resilience you have shown in the face of such profound loss remind us that we can come together as a country and take commonsense actions to save lives and keep our communities safe.”
White House officials said last week that the Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s deputy director, Robert Wilcox, would travel to Uvalde to attend a vigil that honored the victims of the school shooting and to also personally deliver Biden’s letter to them.
Four months ago, the Department of Justice released a rather scathing report that investigated how the gunman in Uvalde was able to first enter the school and then open fire there.
While all this was going on, 400 different law enforcement officers from a variety of law enforcement agencies waited outside for more than an hour before anyone decided to act.
The DOJ’s investigation found that there was a complete lack of communication, preparation and overall initiative at the scene, which led law enforcement to completely bungle the response to the shooting that left 21 people dead.
The investigation began in 2022, not long after the shooting took place, and took nearly two years for the DOJ to complete.
