Biden to meet relatives of Texas school shooting victims

President Joe Biden says he and First Lady Jill Biden will travel to Texas in the coming days to meet with families whose children were killed in the Uvalde elementary school shooting.

Biden said this while speaking at the White House on the occasion of his signing of the police reform executive order. The president signed the document on the two-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, the African-American man who was killed in a police arrest in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death sparked protests across the country and around the world.

The president referred to the shooting in Uvalde, which police said was carried out by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. Americans were shocked by the death toll: 19 students and two teachers were killed in the shooting.

“Jill and I will go to Texas in the next few days to meet with the families to convey our feelings, our sense of their pain, and hopefully we will comfort the townspeople a little bit,” Biden said.

A little more than a week ago, the president visited Buffalo, N.Y., to console the families of the ten people killed in a supermarket by a proponent of white supremacy theory. Almost all of those killed in Buffalo were African-American.

“I’m tired of it,” Biden said.

The president urged the Senate to confirm Steven Dettelbach to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as soon as possible. The agency is tasked with enforcing gun laws. Dettelbach appeared at a Senate hearing Wednesday.

Biden also renewed his criticism of the gun lobby, which is fighting attempts to impose stricter regulations on gun manufacturers and sellers. “Where is the courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby?” – the president said.