Wednesday 25 May 2022 02:13 AM Biden tears into gun makers, mourns kids dying 'as if they're in a battlefield' ... trends now

President Joe Biden condemned gun manufacturers and mourned 'so many crushed spirits' in the wake of a devastating mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that killed 18 children on Tuesday.

The president called on elected officials to 'stand up to the gun lobby' in an impassioned speech barely two hours after arriving back in the United States following his first trip to Asia while commander-in-chief. 

'I had hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this. Again. Another massacre,' a visibly emotional Biden said.

Speaking from the White House Roosevelt Room with First Lady Jill Biden clad in black by his side, the president said: 'Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful innocent, second, third, fourth graders. And how many scores of little children who witnessed what happen - see their friends die as if they're on a battlefield, for God's sake?'

He took a moment to empathize with parents who would never see their young children again after Tuesday.

'Parents will never be the same. To lose a child, it's like having a piece of your soul ripped away,' said the president, who lost his son Beau Biden to brain cancer in 2015.

He lamented, 'So many crush spirits.'

'So tonight, I asked the nation to pray for them. Give the parents and siblings the strength in the darkness they feel right now.'

His voice growing louder, Biden continued: 'As a nation, we have to ask, when in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God's name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?'

Biden recalled the numerous mass shootings over the last decade, including visiting Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman killed 26 people including 20 children while he was vice president. He also remarked on the this month's mass shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York.

'I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don't tell me we can't have an impact on this carnage. I spent my career as a senator and vice president working to pass common sense gun laws,' he said. 

Earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris condemned the mass shooting and called on elected officials to pass reforms to ensure it 'never happens again.'

'So while we don't know all the details yet, we do know that there are parents who have lost children - families that have lost children - and their loved ones of course, and many others who may have been injured,' the vice president said.

'So, I would normally say in a moment like this, we would also say, naturally, that our hearts break. But our hearts keep getting broken. You know, I think so many - there's so many elected leaders in this room, you know what I'm talking about. Every time a tragedy like this happens, our hearts break. And our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families.' 

She added, 'And yet it keeps happening.' 

Speaking at the annual summit for the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, Harris called on those in the room specifically to examine their role in enacting change.

'I think we all know and have said many times with each other, "Enough is enough." Enough is enough. As a nation, we have to have the courage to take action and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible public policy to ensure something like this never happens again.' 

Adding that Biden was due to speak shortly, Harris continued: 'But for now, I will just say to the people of Uvalde - Please know that this is a room full of leaders who grieve with you, and we are praying for you, and we stand with you.'

''It is difficult at a time like this to think about much else. But I do look around this room, and I know who is here, and I know this is a room full of American leaders who knows and have the courage to take a stand.'

Biden ordered all flags at the White House and on federal grounds to fly at half-staff until sundown on May 28 in honor of the victims.