Biden emphasizes need for assault weapons ban on Columbine shooting anniversary

President Joe Biden commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting by again calling on Congress to pass new gun violence legislation.

Though the president signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law in 2022, the package lacked a number of gun violence initiatives he’d pushed for, including nationally mandated background checks for firearm purchases, a new national “red flag” law, and the reinstitution of the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Since 2022, Biden and other White House officials have consistently called for Congress to codify the provisions not included in the BSCA.

In a statement Saturday, Biden said that he and first lady Jill Biden “continue to pray for the survivors and families impacted by this traumatic event, as well as a community that was forever changed.”

The Columbine shooting resulted in the deaths of 12 students, including the two gunmen by suicide, and a teacher, which, at the time, made it the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

Biden noted Saturday, however, that the two-and-a-half decades since Columbine have produced more than 400 school shootings across the country, “exposing over 370,000 students to the horrors of gun violence.”

“I’ve met with countless families who’ve lost loved ones because of gun violence. Their message is always the same: do something,” the president wrote, claiming the bipartisan gun violence bill and his ensuing executive actions have amounted to the largest expansion of federal gun regulations since 1993.

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“This action means fewer guns will end up in the hands of domestic abusers, felons, minors prohibited from purchasing firearms, and other dangerous individuals,” he closed. “My Administration will continue taking action, but Congress must do their part. We need universal background checks, a national red flag law, and we must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. We need Congress to do something — do something — so that communities won’t continue to suffer due to the epidemic of gun violence.”