Joe Biden Condemns Raleigh Shooting, Calls for Gun Control

President Joe Biden  condemned the shooting in North Carolina this week in which a gunman killed five people and injured two others.

“Jill and I are grieving with the families in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose loved ones were killed and wounded in yet another mass shooting in America. We are thinking of yet another community shaken and shattered as they mourn the loss of friends and neighbors, including an off-duty police officer,” the president said in a statement on Friday.

The shooting took place in a middle-class neighborhood in Raleigh on Thursday evening, killing people who ranged in age from 16 to 52 .

Police have taken a 15-year-old suspect into custody  who is in critical condition, according to Raleigh Police Department Chief Estella D. Patterson. Authorities have not identified the suspect or released information about a motive or the suspect’s background, as the investigation is ongoing .

The attack follows devastating mass shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York , that killed 10 Black people, and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas , that was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. According to the Gun Violence Archives , nearly 35,000 people in the U.S. have died because of gun violence this year.

“Enough,” the president’s statement read. “We’ve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings. Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever.”

The U.S. generally has far laxer gun laws than other countries , partially due to the right to own a firearm under the Second Amendment. Gun laws and regulations vary from state to state. 

Biden, who signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in June, called it “the most significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years” in his statement on Friday, but added that “we must do more.”

“We must pass an assault weapons ban,” he said. “The American people support this commonsense action to get weapons of war off our streets. House Democrats have already passed it. The Senate should do the same. Send it to my desk and I’ll sign it.”

Read Biden’s full statement here.