President Biden, arguing again for new gun control laws after the mass shooting in a Texas school, said Wednesday at the White House that the "Second Amendment is not absolute." When it was added to the Constitution, the president said, "You couldn't own a—you couldn't own a cannon. You couldn't own certain kinds of weapons." Biden said that there have always been limitations on gun ownership and that legislation enacted in the past has been effective without compromising the Second Amendment's protection of gun rights, the New York Times reports. "These actions we've taken before, they save lives," he said. "They can do it again."
Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden will travel soon to Uvalde, Texas, per CBS News. He said they'll "meet with the families, and let them know we have a sense, just a sense of their pain. And hopefully, bring some little comfort to the community in shock and grief and in trauma. As a nation, I think we all must be there for them. Everyone." He again pressed Congress to stand up to gun lobby and added a call for action "to, if not completely stop, fundamentally change the amount of the carnage that goes on in this country." (More President Biden stories.)