Acting on This Moral Obligation

by Joe Biden

Please -- please be seated. Thank you.

Before -- before I begin today, let me say to the families of the innocents who were murdered 33 days ago, our heart -- our heart goes out to you. And you show incredible courage, incredible courage being here. And the president and I are going to do everything in our power to -- to honor the memory of your children and your wives with -- with the work we take up here today.

It’s been 33 days since the nation’s heart was broken by the horrific, senseless violence that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Twenty -- twenty beautiful first-graders gunned down in a place that’s supposed to be their second sanctuary; six -- six members of the staff killed trying to save those children. It’s literally been hard for the nation to comprehend, hard for the nation to fathom.

And I know for the families who are here, time is not measured in days but it’s measured in minutes, in seconds since you received that news: another minute without your daughter, another minute without your son, another minute without your wife, another minute without your mom.

I want to personally thank Chris and Lynn McDonnell, who lost a beautiful daughter, Grace, and the other parents who I had a chance to speak to for their suggestions for -- again, just for their -- the courage of all of you to -- to be here today. I -- I admire -- I admire the grace and the resolve that you all are showing.

And I must say I’ve been deeply affected by your faith as well, and the president and I are going to do everything to try to match the resolve you’ve demonstrated. No one can know for certain if this senseless act could have been prevented, but we all know we have a moral obligation -- a moral obligation to do everything in our power to diminish the prospect that something like this could happen again.

As the president knows, I’ve worked in this field a long time in the United States Senate, having chaired a committee that had jurisdiction over these issues of guns and crime, and having drafted the first gun violence legislation -- the last gun violence legislation, I should say, and I have no illusions about we’re up against -- what we’re up against or how hard the task is in front of us. But I also have never seen a nation’s conscience so shaken by what happened at Sandy Hook. The world has changed, and it’s demanding action.

It’s in this context that the president asked me to put together, along with Cabinet members, a set of recommendations about how we should proceed to meet that moral obligation we have. And toward that end, the Cabinet members and I sat down with 229 groups, not just individuals, representing groups -- 229 groups from law enforcement agencies to public health officials to gun officials to gun advocacy groups to sportsmen and hunters and religious leaders. And I’ve spoken with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, had extensive conversation with mayors and governors and county officials.

And the recommendations we provided to the president on Monday call for executive actions he could sign, legislation he could call for and long-term research that should be undertaken. They’re based on the emerging consensus we heard from all the groups with whom we spoke, including some of you who were the victims of this godawful occurrence, ways to keep guns out of the wrong hands as well as ways to take comprehensive action to prevent violence in the first place. We should do as much as we can as quickly as we can, and we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

So some of what you will hear from the president will happen immediately. Some will take some time. But we have begun. And we are starting here today, and we’re resolved to continue this fight. During the meetings that we held, we met with a young man who’s here today -- I think Colin Goddard is here. Where are you, Colin? Colin was one of the survivors of the -- the Virginia Tech massacre. He was in the classroom. He calls himself one of the lucky seven. And -- and he’ll tell you he was shot four times on that day and he has three bullets that are still inside him.

And when I asked Colin about what he thought we should be doing, he said that -- he said, I’m not here because of what happened to me; I’m here because of -- what happened to me keeps happening to other people and we have to do something about it. Colin, we will. Colin, I promise you we will.

This is our intention. We must do what we can now. And there’s no person who is more committed to acting on this moral obligation we have than the president of the United States of America. Ladies and gentlemen, President Barack Obama.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.