News

Oct 04, 2023

Biden's Guns Speech: Biden Calls for Ban on Assault Weapons and New ‘Red Flag’ Laws

The president said the measures were “not about taking away anyone’s guns.” He

The president said the measures were "not about taking away anyone's guns." He also acknowledged that Congress might not come to a consensus, even as the nation grieves the victims of several mass shootings.

Michael D. Shear

WASHINGTON — President Biden demanded on Thursday that lawmakers respond to communities turned into "killing fields" by passing far-reaching limits on guns, calling on Congress to ban assault-style weapons, expand background checks and pass "red flag" laws after massacres in Texas and New York.

In a rare evening address to the nation, Mr. Biden dared Republicans to ignore the repeated convulsions of anger and grief from gun violence by continuing to block gun measures supported by large majorities in both parties, and even among gun owners.

"My God," he declared from the Cross Hall, a ceremonial part of the White House residence, which was lined with candles in honor of victims of gun violence. "The fact that the majority of the Senate Republicans don't want any of these proposals, even to be debated or come up for a vote, I find unconscionable. We can't fail the American people again."

Mr. Biden's speech came a day after a mass shooting in Tulsa, Okla., that killed four victims and nine days after a massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that took the lives of 19 elementary school children and two teachers. Ten days before that, 10 Black people were gunned down in a grocery store in Buffalo. The list, Mr. Biden said, goes on.

"After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland — nothing has been done," he said, lamenting decades of inaction.

With the 17-minute address, Mr. Biden abruptly shed the reluctance of his White House to engage in what could become yet another fruitless partisan confrontation, played out amid funerals in Uvalde, Buffalo and Tulsa. After weeks of carefully calibrating his calls for action, the president on Thursday did not hold back.

"Enough, enough. It's time for each of us to do our part," he told Americans. "For the children we’ve lost. For the children we can save. For the nation we love."

"Let's hear the call and the cry," he said, almost pleading with his fellow politicians in Washington. "Let's meet the moment. Let us finally do something."

Whether that will happen remains unclear. Despite his forceful tone, Mr. Biden all but acknowledged in his speech the political realities that could make him just another in a long line of presidents to have demanded action on guns, only to fail. He called the fight "hard," and moments after urging a ban on assault weapons, he offered alternatives if that proved to be impossible.

"If we can't ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen the background checks," he said. He called on Congress to "enact safe storage law and red flag laws, repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, address the mental health crisis."

In his remarks, Mr. Biden turned his evident cynicism about Republicans into a kind of political threat, saying that "if Congress fails, I believe this time a majority of the American people won't give up either. I believe the majority of you will act to turn your outrage into making this issue central to your vote."

Mr. Biden is not a newcomer to the gun debate.

He has repeatedly said he favors reinstating the ban on assault weapons that he helped pass as a senator and was law for a decade before it expired in 2004. He has called on lawmakers to pass universal background checks for a decade, since 20 children were killed in a shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.

But both of those measures are seen as highly unlikely to pass in Congress, where fierce Republican opposition has historically stood in their way. Lawmakers in both parties have said recently that they do not believe there is enough bipartisan support to approve either approach.

House Democrats on Thursday advanced a wide-ranging package of gun control legislation that would prohibit the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people under 21 and ban the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. But those measures, too, were all but certain to die in the Senate.

Democrats put forward the legislation in response to the killings in Uvalde and the racist massacre in Buffalo — both, the police say, at the hands of 18-year-old gunmen using legally purchased AR-15-style weapons.

A bitterly divided House Judiciary Committee spent Thursday considering the legislation and approved it Thursday evening, on a party-line vote of 25 to 19. Fierce Republican opposition during the committee debate underscored the partisan animosity.

Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, warned that another shooting was not far away. He pleaded with Republicans, "My friends, what the hell are you waiting for?"

Republicans deride such measures as unconstitutional attempts to take guns from law-abiding Americans, robbing them of their right to defend themselves. Representative Dan Bishop, Republican of North Carolina, expressed outrage that Democrats had painted Republicans as complicit in mass shootings, declaring, "You are not going to bully your way into stripping Americans of fundamental rights."

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said administration officials had been in close touch with lawmakers over the past several days as a bipartisan group of senators discussed a narrower set of limits on gun ownership.

The negotiations have centered on expanding background checks and providing incentives for states to pass red flag laws, which allow guns to be seized from dangerous people. The group is also looking at proposals on the safe storage of guns at home, community violence and mental health, according to aides and senators involved in the talks.

With Republicans unanimously opposed to most major gun control measures, the Senate talks offer what is probably the best chance at finding a bipartisan compromise on guns that could pass the 50-to-50 Senate, where 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster and bring legislation to a vote.

But the endeavor faces long odds, with little evidence that either side is willing to give ground on a debate that has been stalled for years.

Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut is leading the talks for Democrats, joined by his fellow party members Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. The Republican senators they are huddling with include Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine.

Those nine negotiators met over Zoom on Wednesday to discuss their progress, convening for an hour after days of individual phone calls and smaller meetings with each other and their colleagues. Talks were expected to continue before the Senate returns early next week.

"We are making rapid progress toward a common-sense package that could garner support from both Republicans and Democrats," Ms. Collins said in a brief statement after the meeting.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a top ally to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has also been involved in discussions, including a Tuesday meeting with Mr. Murphy, Ms. Sinema and Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina.

Democratic leaders have warned that if an agreement cannot be reached quickly, they will force votes on the bills in the House, which do not have Republican support, to demonstrate for Americans which lawmakers are standing in the way of passing gun safety measures.

"I’m cleareyed about the history of failure," Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview after Wednesday's meeting. "But if there's ever a moment to put up or shut up, this one is it."

In the days immediately after the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings, both the president and Vice President Kamala Harris largely stayed away from any direct negotiations with lawmakers about how to create a response to the shootings that can pass in Congress.

But on Thursday, Mr. Biden abandoned that approach, deciding instead to lay down a marker that will cement his legacy as a president who fought for tougher gun laws, successful or not.

In his speech on Thursday, Mr. Biden described the deep grief that he experienced when he and his wife talked to the families of victims in the two mass shootings.

"At both places, we spent hours with hundreds of family members, who were broken, whose lives will never be the same," he said. "They had one message for all of us: Do something. Just do something. For God's sake, do something."

"How much more carnage are we willing to accept?" he asked. "How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say: Enough. Enough."

And he made the target of his comment clear, saying it now falls to Congress to pass the far-reaching laws it has refused to in the past.

"The question now is: What will the Congress do?" he said. The president said he supported the efforts by the bipartisan group in the Senate to find a compromise, but called it the least lawmakers should do.

The approach Thursday night was more like the response from former President Barack Obama in January 2013, just weeks after the shooting at the school in Newtown.

Mr. Obama, flanked by Mr. Biden, who was then the vice president, proposed a package of gun control measures, including: ensuring that all gun owners go through a background check; improving state reporting of criminals and the mentally ill; banning assault weapons; and capping magazine clip capacity at 10 bullets.

In the face of Republican opposition, Mr. Obama dropped his demand for an assault weapon ban and limits on the size of magazine clips. After months of pushing by Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, the Senate rejected a bipartisan effort to expand background checks.

In scathing comments after the bill died, Mr. Obama derided senators for deciding that the lives of children were not worth the effort to pass legislation. A decade later, Mr. Obama's grim assessment stands as a warning for Mr. Biden of what might happen again.

"All in all," Mr. Obama said at the time, "this was a pretty shameful day for Washington."

Emily Cochrane, Catie Edmondson and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.

The New York Times

President Biden gave an address at the White House on Thursday calling for Congress to pass several gun control measures after a spate of recent mass shootings. The following is a transcript of his remarks, as recorded by The New York Times.

Memorial Day, this past Monday, Jill and I visited Arlington National Cemetery. As we entered those hallowed grounds, we saw rows and rows of crosses among the rows of headstones and other emblems of belief, honoring those who paid the ultimate price on battlefields around the world.

The day before, we visited Uvalde — Uvalde, Texas. In front of Robb Elementary School, we stood before 21 crosses, for 19 third and fourth graders and two teachers. On each cross, a name.

And nearby, a photo of each victim, that Jill and I reached out to touch. Innocent victims, murdered in a classroom that had been turned into a killing field. Standing there in that small town, like so many other communities across America, I couldn't help but think there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields, battlefields, here in America.

We stood in such a place just 12 days before, across from a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, memorializing 10 fellow Americans — a spouse, a parent, a grandparent, a sibling, gone forever. At both places, we spent hours with hundreds of family members who were broken, and whose lives will never be the same. They had one message for all of us: Do something. Just do something. For God's sake, do something.

After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland, nothing has been done. This time, that can't be true. This time, we must actually do something. The issue we face is one of conscience and common sense.

For so many of you at home, I want to be very clear. This is not about taking away anyone's guns. It's not about vilifying gun owners. In fact, we believe we should be treating responsible gun owners as an example of how every gun owner should behave.

I respect the culture and the tradition and the concerns of lawful gun owners. At the same time, the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute. It was Justice Scalia who wrote, and I quote: "Like most rights, the right Second Amendment — the rights granted by the Second Amendment are not unlimited." Not unlimited. It never has been.

There have always been limitations on what weapons you can own in America. For example, machine guns have been federally regulated for nearly 90 years, and this is still a free country. This isn't about taking away anyone's rights. It's about protecting children. It's about protecting families. It's about protecting whole communities. It's about protecting our freedoms to go to school, to a grocery store, to a church, without being shot and killed.

According to new data just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns are the No. 1 killer of children in the United States of America. The No. 1 killer. More than car accidents, more than cancer. Over the last two decades, more school-age children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active-duty military combined.

Think about that. More kids than on-duty cops killed by guns. More kids than soldiers killed by guns. For God's sake. How much more carnage are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say enough? Enough.

I know that we can't prevent every tragedy, but here's what I believe we have to do. Here's what the overwhelming majority of the American people believe we must do. Here's what the families in Buffalo and Uvalde, in Texas, told us we must do.

We need to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. And if we can't ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21. Strengthen the background checks, enact safe storage laws and "red flag" laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability. Address the mental health crisis deepening the trauma of gun violence, and as a consequence of that violence.

These are rational, common-sense measures. Here's what it all means. It all means this: We should reinstate the assault weapons ban on high capacity magazines that we passed in 1994 with bipartisan support in Congress and the support of law enforcement.

Nine categories of semiautomatic weapons were included in that ban, like AK-47s and AR-15s. And in the 10 years it was law, mass shootings went down. But after Republicans let the law expire in 2004, and those weapons were allowed to be sold again, mass shootings tripled. Those are the facts.

A few years ago, the family of the inventor of the AR-15 said he would have been horrified to know his design was being used to slaughter children and other innocent lives instead of being used as a military weapon on the battlefields, as it was designed. That's what it was designed for.

Enough, enough. We should limit how many rounds a weapon can hold. Why in God's name should an ordinary citizen be able to purchase an assault weapon that holds 30-round magazines that let mass shooters fire hundreds of bullets in a matter of minutes? The damage was so devastating in Uvalde parents had to do DNA swabs to identify the remains of their children. Nine- and 10-year-old children.

Enough. We should expand background checks to keep guns out of the hands of felons, fugitives and those under restraining orders. Stronger background checks are something that the vast majority of Americans, including the majority of gun owners, agree on.

I also believe we should have safe storage laws, and personal liability for not locking up your gun. The shooter in Sandy Hook came from a home full of guns. They were too easy to access. That's how he got the weapons. The weapon he used to kill his mother, and then murder 26 people, including 20 first graders.

If you own a weapon, you have a responsibility to secure it. Every responsible gun owner agrees. To make sure no one else can have access to it. To lock it up. To have trigger locks. And if you don't, and something bad happens, you should be held responsible.

We should also have national red flag laws so that a parent, a teacher, a counselor can flag for a court that a child, a student, a patient is exhibiting violent tendencies, threatening classmates or experiencing suicidal thoughts — it makes them a danger to themselves or to others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have red flag laws. The Delaware law is named after my son, Attorney General Beau Biden.

Fort Hood, Texas, 2009. Thirteen dead and more than 30 injured. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., 2018. Seventeen dead, 17 injured. In both places, countless others suffering with invisible wounds. Red flag laws could have stopped both these shooters.

In Uvalde, the shooter was 17 when he asked his sister to buy him an assault weapon, knowing he’d be denied because he was too young to purchase one himself. She refused. But as soon as he turned 18, he purchased two assault weapons for himself. Because in Texas, you can be 18 years old and buy an assault weapon, even though you can't buy a pistol in Texas until you’re 21.

If we can't ban assault weapons, as we should, we must at least raise the age to be able to purchase one to 21. Look, I know some folks will say 18-year-olds can serve in the military and fire those weapons, but that's with training and supervision by the best-trained experts in the world. Don't tell me raising the age won't make a difference. Enough.

We should repeal the liability shield that often protects gun manufacturers from being sued for the death and destruction caused by their weapons. They’re the only industry in this country that has that kind of immunity.

Imagine. Imagine if the tobacco industry had been immune from being sued, where we’d be today. The gun industry's special protections are outrageous. It must end.

And let there be no mistake about the psychological trauma that gun violence leaves behind. Imagine being that little girl, that brave little girl in Uvalde, who smeared blood off her murdered friend's body onto her own face, to lie still among the corpses in her classroom and pretend she was dead in order to stay alive. Imagine. Imagine what it would be like for her to walk down the hallway of any school again.

Imagine what it's like for children who experience this kind of trauma every day in school, on the streets, in communities all across America. Imagine what it's like for so many parents to hug their children goodbye in the morning, not sure whether they’ll come back home. Unfortunately, too many people don't have to imagine that at all.

Even before the pandemic, young people were already hurting. There's a serious youth mental health crisis in this country. We have to do something about it. That's why mental health is the heart of my unity agenda that I laid out in the State of the Union address this year.

We must provide more school counselors; more school nurses; more mental health services for students and for teachers. More people volunteering as mentors to help young people succeed. More privacy protection and resources to keep kids safe from the harms of social media.

This unity agenda won't fully heal the wounded souls, but it will help. It matters.

I just told you what I’d do. The question now is: What will the congress do?

The House of Representatives already passed key measures we need: Expanding background checks to cover nearly all gun sales, including at gun shows and online sales. Getting rid of a loophole that allows a gun sale to go through after three business days, even if the background check has not been completed.

And the House is planning even more action next week. Safe storage requirements. The banning of high-capacity magazines. Raising the age to buy an assault weapon to 21. Federal red flag law. Codifying my ban on ghost guns that don't have serial numbers and can't be traced. And tougher laws to prevent gun trafficking and straw purchases.

This time, we have to take the time to do something. And this time, it's time for the Senate to do something.

But, as we know, in order to get anything done in the Senate, we need a minimum of 10 Republican senators. I support the bipartisan efforts that include a small group of Democrats and Republican senators trying to find a way. But my God. The fact that the majority of the Senate Republicans don't want any of these proposals even to be debated or come up for a vote, I find unconscionable.

We can't fail the American people again. Since Uvalde, just over a week ago, there have been 20 other mass shootings in America, each with four or more people killed or injured, including yesterday, at a hospital in Tulsa, Okla. A shooter deliberately targeted a surgeon using an assault weapon he bought just a few hours before his rampage that left a surgeon, another doctor, a receptionist and a patient dead, and many more injured. That doesn't count the carnage we see every single day that doesn't make the headlines.

I’ve been in this fight for a long time. I know how hard it is, but I’ll never give up. And if Congress fails, I believe this time, a majority of the American people won't give up, either. I believe the majority of you will act to turn your outrage into making this issue central to your vote. Enough, enough, enough.

Over the next 17 days, the families in Uvalde will continue burying their dead. It will take that long, in part, because it's a town where everyone knows everyone, and day by day they will honor each one they lost. Jill and I met with the owner and staff of the funeral home, who was being strong, strong, strong to take care of their own. And the people of Uvalde mourned, as they do over the next 17 days. What will we be doing as a nation?

Jill and I met with the sister of the teacher who was murdered and whose husband died of a heart attack two days later, leaving behind four beautiful, orphaned children. All now orphans.

The sister asked us: What could she say? What could she tell her nieces and nephews? The most heartbreaking moments that I can remember. All I could think to say was, I told her to hold them tight. Hold them tight.

After visiting the school, we attended Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church with Father Eddy. In the pews, family and friends held each other tightly. As Archbishop Gustavo spoke, he asked the children in attendance to come up on the altar and sit in the altar with him, as he spoke. There wasn't enough room, so a mom and her young son sat next to Jill and me in the first pew.

And as we left the church, a grandmother who had just lost her granddaughter passed me a handwritten letter. It read, quote: "Erase the invisible line that is dividing our nation. Come up with a solution and fix what's broken and make the changes that are necessary to prevent this happening again." End of quote.

My fellow Americans, enough. Enough. It's time for each of us to do our part. It's time to act. For the children we’ve lost. For the children we can save. For the nation we love. Let's hear the call and the cry. Let's meet the moment. Let us finally do something.

God bless the families who are hurting. God bless you all. From a hymn based in the 91st Psalm, sung in my church: "May he raise you up on eagle's wings and bear you on the breath of dawn. Make you to shine like the sun and hold you in the palm of his hand."

That's my prayer for all of you. God bless you.

Luis Ferre Sadurni

Democratic lawmakers in New York just passed a package of gun bills that would ban people younger than 21 from purchasing semiautomatic rifles in the state. The legislation, which Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to sign, also bans most civilians from purchasing bullet-resistant vests.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

What we did not hear much about? How the president will work to see any of these reforms put in place. He has acknowledged that he has few options to take action using executive authority. During negotiations over infrastructure and his social spending package, he hosted meetings with members of Congress at the White House and even at his home in Delaware. Will we see similar efforts for this issue?

Traci Carl

Nevada's state treasurer, Zach Conine, said in a video on Twitter that his state had identified at least $89 million that would be subject to divestment from companies profiting off the sale or manufacture of assault-style weapons. He said Nevada made the move because the investments exposed the state to too much financial and moral risk.

Today, I directed our team to divest the State of Nevada from any investment in a business that profits from the sale or manufacture of assault-style weapons. No one policy or law will fix this crisis, but we all must do something. 1/2https://t.co/gBz3sVt0yi

Catie Edmondson

In a sign of the entrenched opposition to gun control that Democrats are facing on Capitol Hill, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California and a member of the Judiciary Committee, called Biden's address his "worst speech yet" and said the president "lashed out at everyone who doesn't share his gun control agenda."

Glenn Thrush

Biden's speech was a broad summons to the American people — and a vow to make the issue of guns central in the midterm elections. His final appeal, for a majority of the country to rise up in support of a gun control agenda that has been blocked in Washington, was an implicit admission that his power over Congress is limited. But that approach has not succeeded in the past, and gun control has often motivated voters who favor gun rights.

Emily Cochrane

Murphy reacted to the speech in a statement: "Over the last week, I have been in almost constant communication with my colleagues to find common ground on a meaningful, bipartisan package that will save lives. Momentum is building, and we’re going to keep at it to make sure we meet this moment and deliver for the overwhelming majority of Americans demanding change."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Biden has faced pressure from gun control advocates to use the bully pulpit to call for sweeping changes to the availability of guns in America. While Senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democrat in the talks, has signaled he's open to modest changes in the wake of the mass shootings, the president pressed for a ban on assault weapons, a proposal that is likely to get minimal support from Republicans.

Emily Cochrane

In an acknowledgement that Congress may not touch his wish list of legislation, Biden made a political point, saying that he believes Americans will make it a central issue when it is time to vote. "I’ll never give up, and if Congress fails, I believe this time, a majority of the American people won't give up either," he said. "I believe the majority of you will act to turn your outrage into making this issue central to your vote. Enough, enough, enough."

Glenn Thrush

One omission from the speech: Biden did not mention his nomination of Steven Dettelbach, a former federal prosecutor, to be the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Dettelbach appears to be on a narrow path to confirmation to lead the federal agency tasked with enforcing gun laws. But two key Democratic senators have yet to say how they will vote.

Catie Edmondson

My colleagues and I polled Senate Republicans last week on whether they could support the House-passed legislation expanding background checks.

Catie Edmondson

"The question now is, what will the Congress do?" Biden asks. Senators are still negotiating, but already it seems clear that if they are able to strike a bipartisan deal, it will fall far short of anything Biden has just proposed.

Emily Cochrane

Worth noting that as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, has traveled across his state this week, he has signaled support for these bipartisan talks. But he has made no mention of these sweeping changes to gun laws President Biden is discussing tonight, and called for attention to mental health and school safety.

Catie Edmondson

The House Democrats’ legislative package also includes a measure that would raise the minimum age to purchase semiautomatic rifles to 21. But again, Republicans have signaled it is not a measure they could support.

Glenn Thrush

Igor Volsky, the executive director of Guns Down America, which has pressured the White House to take more aggressive action on guns, said in a text that he liked Biden's tone, but that he wanted to see him follow through. "My question is: What is Biden's plan for achieving some of these goals?" he asked. "Is he traveling the country to build support and apply political pressure to key lawmakers? Is he rolling his sleeves up and lobbying key senators?"

Catie Edmondson

A handful of Senate Republicans have expressed interest in incentivizing states to implement red flag laws. But they have flatly ruled out the kind of federal red flag law Biden is suggesting in this speech.

Glenn Thrush

"This is not about taking away anyone's guns," Biden says, days after being ridiculed and vilified by speaker after speaker at the National Rifle Association's convention in Houston. Gun sales spiked after his election, when gun rights groups claimed, falsely, that he had the power to unilaterally restrict the purchase of semiautomatic rifles and handguns.

Emily Cochrane

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a letter to her colleagues today, pledged that the House would hold a hearing on an assault weapons ban in the coming weeks. But that kind of measure would be highly unlikely to pass the Senate.

Catie Edmondson

House Democrats are advancing legislation that would ban high-capacity magazines. But it faces united Republican opposition in both the House and Senate.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

"We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," the president says. Those two proposals are not likely to be enacted through the current bipartisan negotiations in Congress.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

The president is turning to a concern of some conservatives in the country. "This isn't about taking away anyone's rights," Biden says. He says it is about the freedom to send children to school.

Emily Cochrane

After ticking through all of the failed efforts to address gun reform after deadly mass shootings across the country, Biden pledges that this time will be different. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have made the same commitment, but it remains to be seen if this moment produces a compromise that can actually become law.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

"Do something" is what the president says he heard from Americans when he visited Uvalde and Buffalo to mourn the victims of mass shootings. While walking out of a church service in the Texas town this weekend, the president committed to taking action. "We will, we will," he said.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

The doors to the Cross Hall are open. The president is set to speak momentarily. I’m told by a White House official that the candles lit along the Cross Hall are for victims of gun violence.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Just a week ago, Biden administration officials argued that it might be beneficial for the president to give Congress space to negotiate. Involving a president with low approval numbers in talks about an already polarized issue might push away some members of Congress, they said. But there may now be an added sense of urgency after another mass shooting, this time in Tulsa.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

It's clear that Biden will use this moment to pressure the Senate to do something on new gun laws. I’ll also be watching to see if he continues a recent trend of describing how little he can do by himself to tighten restrictions on guns. He told reporters in Buffalo that there wasn't much the executive branch could do.

Glenn Thrush

As the president prepares to speak, the Justice Department is still considering taking federal action to address two recent mass shootings. The department is expected to announce hate crimes charges in connection with the Buffalo massacre, and department officials are expected to name a lead investigator to assess the performance of local law enforcement during the shooting in Uvalde.

Glenn Thrush

Biden's appearance has a twofold political purpose. First, he wants to maintain whatever modest momentum there is for a bipartisan gun deal, and second, aides said, he is concerned that public outrage over the recent killings is fading fast and he wants to keep the public focused on the issue.

Michael Shear

President Biden delayed his departure for a long weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Del., in order to deliver his remarks tonight. The president's original schedule had him arriving in Delaware for the mini-vacation at 6:30 p.m. The White House said Biden would instead leave after the speech, arriving later in the evening.

Emily Cochrane

Several senators have spent the Memorial Day recess outside of Washington in a series of private meetings and phone calls, searching for a possible compromise that could get at least 60 votes. While party leaders have signaled support for those discussions, Democrats have warned that they will force votes on House-passed gun control bills if it becomes clear that a deal is not imminent.

Catie Edmondson

Here on Capitol Hill, we’re approaching the eighth hour of a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing as Democrats push forward a wide-ranging package of gun control measures. None of the proposals have a chance in the Senate.

Emily Cochrane

President Biden's speech comes after several failed attempts to pass significant gun reform legislation into law. Democrats concede any compromise will be more modest because they need to secure at least 10 Republican votes in the evenly divided Senate to avoid a filibuster.

Jesse McKinley and Lauren D’Avolio

The man accused of carrying out a racist massacre that killed 10 Black residents at a Buffalo supermarket was arraigned in an Erie County courtroom on Thursday on more than two dozen charges, including murder and domestic terrorism motivated by hate — believed to be the first time that such a law has been leveled against a defendant in New York.

The suspect, Payton Gendron, 18, briefly appeared in court on Thursday, amid a heavy police presence and with some family members of victims sitting in the gallery. All told, 13 people were shot on May 14 at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo's East Side; three survived.

Mr. Gendron, an avowed white supremacist, had been indicted on Wednesday by a grand jury on 25 counts, including 10 counts of first-degree murder and 10 counts of second-degree murder charges as hate crimes. He was also indicted on one count of a charge known as a domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate in the first degree — because of allegations in the indictment that Mr. Gendron acted "because of the perceived race and/or color of such person or persons" injured and killed in the attack.

That charge was passed into state law in 2020, prompted by a series of anti-Jewish incidents, including a knife attack at the home of a Hasidic rabbi in Monsey, N.Y., in late 2019. According to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, to which law enforcement agencies report arrests requiring fingerprints, the law had not previously been used in any arrest or arraignment since taking effect in Nov. 2020. It carries a penalty of life in prison without parole.

Mr. Gendron pleaded not guilty to the charges, which also include three counts of attempted murder as a hate crime and a single count of criminal possession of a weapon. He could also face additional federal charges, officials have said. He remains held without bail, and is due back in court on July 7.

After the arraignment, the county district attorney, John J. Flynn, said that he had decided to pursue a raft of charges because of the seriousness of the attack and in memory of those killed.

"I chose to charge 10 separate counts to list, by name, the 10 victims, because they deserve to be listed by name," Mr. Flynn said. "And he needs to be held accountable for all 10."

Mr. Flynn, a Democrat, declined to comment on reports that authorities had been looking into whether other people knew in advance about Mr. Gendron's plans. The Buffalo News reported last week, citing anonymous sources, that a former federal agent had communicated with Mr. Gendron in an online chat room where racist ideas were common. The report did not specify what office or agency the agent had worked for.

Mr. Flynn did say, however, that "at this time, there does not appear to be anyone else who was criminally liable."

"Could that change?" he added. "Absolutely."

Authorities said that Mr. Gendron traveled more than 200 miles from his home in Conklin, N.Y., in the state's Southern Tier, to commit his attack after carefully choosing the East Side neighborhood in Buffalo because of its large number of Black residents.

In the months before the shooting, Mr. Gendron had written an extensive series of racist comments in a private online diary, including plans for an attack in Buffalo, photos of tactical gear and the assault-style weapon that officials say he used to carry out the shooting, and other musings, using the messaging site Discord.

Just before the attack, Mr. Gendron shared those writings with a small group of people; Mr. Gendron also briefly livestreamed the attack on Twitch, an Amazon-owned site popular with video gamers.

"There's a lot of evidence here," said Mr. Flynn.

He added that he would fight any effort by the defense to move the trial out of Erie County. "This happened in our community," Mr. Flynn said.

Mr. Gendron surrendered to the police after the shooting, and days later, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced an executive order directing the State Police to establish a new unit to monitor "violent extremism through social media," like the channels Mr. Gendron is believed to have used.

Ms. Hochul has also backed a series of new measures to tighten the state's already stringent gun laws, including raising the age for ownership of semiautomatic rifles, like the one Mr. Gendron is believed to have used, to 21. Those bills were beginning to be passed in Albany on Thursday by the State Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats.

Mr. Gendron's attack came just 10 days before a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which left 21 people dead, including 19 children. The gunman in that shooting, Salvador Ramos, 18, who died in the attack, also used an assault-style rifle. And on Wednesday, there was another shooting in Tulsa, Okla., where a man killed four people at medical center, carrying a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun.

On Thursday evening, President Biden delivered an emotional prime time address, railing against the attacks in Buffalo, Uvalde and Tulsa, and pressing Congress to enact a range of "rational, common sense measures" to combat gun violence.

It was a sweeping list of proposals including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, the repeal of a federal law that often protects gun manufacturers from liability, and stronger background checks and gun-storage requirements.

"For God's sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept?" Mr. Biden said, repeatedly calling on lawmakers to "do something," a plea he says he heard, again and again, from victims’ families.

Like Ms. Hochul, Mr. Biden also asked to raise the age for semiautomatic rifle purchases — barring an outright ban — as well as a national "red-flag law," allowing parents, teachers and others to ask the courts to issue orders barring ownership of guns from those deemed a danger to themselves or others.

Such statutes are in place in nearly 20 states, including New York, though they are not foolproof: Mr. Gendron's postings on Discord, in which he lied about a threat he had made in 2021 at his high school, indicated that he had easily sidestepped New York's red-flag law.

In Buffalo, the victims included several older shoppers, as well as a security guard — a retired Buffalo police officer — who exchanged fire with Mr. Gendron, who was wearing body armor during the attack. All 10 of the victims who died were Black, making the attack one of the worst racist massacres in recent American history.

In addition to his diary on Discord, Mr. Gendron, who is white, had also posted a lengthy screed in the days before the attack, expressing adherence to a white supremacist ideology known as replacement theory, which posits a conspiracy to "replace" white Americans with immigrants or people of color.

That theory — once a little-known kernel of paranoia peddled by alt-right fringe groups — has found a larger audience in recent years as it has been refashioned and amplified by some conservative commentators and politicians.

Mr. Gendron, whose writings sometimes took the form of question-and-answer sessions between himself and imagined readers, also expressed admiration for other racist gunmen, all of whom were also white.

That included the person involved in a 2015 attack on a church in South Carolina, killing nine Black parishioners; an Australian man who killed 51 worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019; and another man who attacked a Walmart in El Paso in 2019, leaving 23 people dead, and who later told the police he had sought to kill Mexicans.

In remarks made in front of the courthouse on Thursday, Mayor Byron Brown of Buffalo called Mr. Gendron a "racist, hate-filled outsider," and promised that "the wheels of justice are turning very swiftly."

Mr. Brown, a Democrat in his fifth term who is Black, said that his city would "never forget what happened last month," and spoke out about the proliferation of weapons in today's society.

"The access to guns is too easy in this country," he said, adding that he and fellow mayors across the nation planned to push lawmakers for stronger laws. "We will not be silent on this issue."

Lauren D’Avolio contributed reporting from Buffalo.

Emily Cochrane

A small group of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have reported progress this week in negotiations on modest legislation aimed at addressing gun violence, expressing hope that they could produce a deal to break nearly a decade of congressional paralysis on the issue and be signed into law.

With Republicans unanimously opposed to most major gun control measures, the group offers what is probably the best chance at finding a bipartisan compromise on guns that could pass the evenly divided Senate, where 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster and bring legislation to a vote.

But the endeavor faces long odds, with the two parties bitterly divided on guns and little evidence that either is willing to give ground on a debate that has been stalled for years.

The negotiations have centered on expanding background checks and providing incentives for states to pass red flag laws that allow guns to be seized from dangerous people. The group is also looking at proposals on the safe storage of guns at home, community violence and mental health, according to aides and senators involved in the private talks who described them on the condition of anonymity.

They declined to offer specifics about what was under discussion, underscoring the fragility of the talks, which have unfolded on a rapid timetable and remotely, with Congress in recess for the Memorial Day holiday. The group includes centrists in both parties and veterans of previous failed efforts to strike a compromise on stricter gun laws.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut is leading the talks for Democrats, along with Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. They are huddling with Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine.

Those nine negotiators huddled over Zoom on Wednesday to discuss their progress, convening for an hour after days of individual phone calls and smaller meetings with each other and their colleagues. Talks were expected to continue before the Senate returns early next week, as senators rush to make headway.

"We are making rapid progress toward a common-sense package that could garner support from both Republicans and Democrats," Ms. Collins said in a brief statement after the meeting.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a top Republican, has also been involved in discussions, including a Tuesday meeting with Mr. Murphy, Ms. Sinema, and Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina.

"We’ve asked our staff to continue to work together to address some of the details that we hope to be able to discuss at some point soon," he said in a statement, calling the meeting a "very constructive conversation about the best response to the horrific events in Uvalde last week."

Democratic leaders have warned that if an agreement cannot be reached quickly, they will force votes on House-passed bills that do not have Republican support. That legislation includes measures to bar those younger than 21 from purchasing semiautomatic weapons and banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

"I’m cleareyed about the history of failure," Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview after Wednesday's meeting. "But if there's ever a moment to put up or shut up, this one is it."

In appearances across his state this week, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, has repeatedly signaled support for the ongoing talks, noting that he has personally encouraged Mr. Cornyn, a close ally, to work with Democrats. But the Republican leader has also made no mention of red flag laws or background checks, instead focusing on mental health and school safety in his remarks.

"We’re working, hoping to come up with a bipartisan agreement so we can pass something at the federal level that will actually target this problem," Mr. McConnell said on Thursday, speaking to a group in Mt. Sterling. "I’m hopeful and optimistic that we can, but I, like most of you, believe this needs to be done and must be done consistent with the Constitution and the culture of most of our country."

Mr. McConnell has made similar statements in the past on gun safety measures, only to band together with his party to thwart their enactment.

In an opinion piece published on the Fox News website on Thursday, Mr. Murphy emphasized his support for the right to own a firearm and conceded that any compromise that Republicans will accept is likely to fall well short of what activists have demanded.

"We’ve got to invest in mental health and we’ve got to make some common-sense changes to our gun laws that are completely consistent with the Second Amendment to just make sure that dangerous people don't get their hands on weapons," Mr. Murphy said, speaking on MSNBC on Thursday morning.

Catie Edmondson

House Democrats on Thursday were set to advance a wide-ranging package of gun control legislation through a wall of Republican opposition, but the measures were all but certain to die in the Senate, where negotiations continued on more modest proposals that had a chance to draw the bipartisan support necessary to pass.

Democrats put forward legislation in response to the killing of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the racist massacre in Buffalo 10 days earlier that killed 10 Black people at a supermarket — both at the hands of 18-year-old gunmen using legally purchased AR-15-style weapons. The legislation would prohibit the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people under 21 and ban the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

A bitterly divided House Judiciary Committee spent Thursday considering the legislation and was poised to approve it, likely along party lines, hours before President Biden was scheduled to deliver a prime-time address from the White House calling on Congress to act on new "common-sense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence."

"It has not even been 24 hours since the last mass shooting," Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee said, addressing Republicans during an emergency hearing to consider the legislation. "And who knows how long until the next one? My friends, what the hell are you waiting for?"

Democratic leaders vowed to put the legislation to a quick vote in the House, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Wednesday that she intended to bring up additional measures, including one that would ban assault weapons, in the coming weeks. But none of the proposals had a chance in the evenly divided Senate, where near-unanimous Republican opposition means that none could draw the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and be brought to a vote.

In the House, the Judiciary Committee hearing illustrated how difficult it will be for the handful of Republican and Democratic negotiators in the Senate to bridge the vast gulf between the two parties on gun control, an issue that has defied nearly a decade's worth of efforts at bipartisan compromise.

Republicans on the panel accused Democrats of engaging in political theater and advancing misguided legislation that would trample on the Constitution.

"What we are doing here is just designed to appeal to Democratic primary voters," said Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the panel. "This bill will not make your school safer. It will hamper the rights of law-abiding citizens and it will do nothing to stop mass shootings."

Republicans, including Mr. Jordan, suggested that lawmakers look into bulking up security around schools, and said that advancing gun control legislation was "premature" because more research was needed to understand why so many young men have turned weapons on scores of innocent people.

Representative Dan Bishop, Republican of North Carolina, expressed outrage that Democrats had painted Republicans as complicit in the spate of mass shootings across the country.

"You are not going to bully your way into stripping Americans of fundamental rights," Mr. Bishop said.

Democrats responded with their own outrage.

"My generation and the generations who have followed know that this epidemic of gun violence is not unstoppable. It is a choice," said Representative Mondaire Jones, Democrat of New York. "A choice you could make differently at any time. A choice between our lives and your guns. Time after time, we have given you a chance: after Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Parkland. And time after time, you have chosen to put your right to kill over our right to live."

Later, in a heated exchange, Mr. Jones asked Mr. Bishop what policies to combat gun violence he would be willing to support.

"I wouldn't let teachers prop doors open," Mr. Bishop responded. "I would make sure that police are not discouraged from going in and saving children who are being assaulted while the assault is going on. I would not intimidate the police and tell them they ought to cease to exist."

"I can translate that for you," Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island, interjected, addressing Mr. Jones. "He is willing to do nothing."

Max Fisher

The Interpreter

As Congress once more struggles through acrimonious and so far fruitless negotiations over gun reforms in the wake of a mass shooting, Americans may find themselves looking north in befuddlement.

Canada's government has begun moving to ban handgun sales and buy back military-style rifles — dramatic changes in a country with one of the world's highest gun ownership rates outside of the United States, expected to pass easily and with little fuss.

Ask Americans why Canada's government seems to cut through issues that mire their own in bitterness and frustration, and you might hear them cite cultural differences, gentler politics, even easygoing Canadian temperaments.

But ask a political scientist, and you’ll get a more straightforward answer.

Differences in national culture and issues, while meaningful, do not on their own explain things. After all, Canada also has two parties that mostly dominate national politics, an urban-rural divide, deepening culture wars and a rising far-right. And guns have been a contentious issue there for decades, one long contested by activist groups.

Rather, much of the gap in how these two countries handle contentious policy questions comes down to something that can feel invisible amid day-to-day politicking, but may be just as important as the issues themselves: the structures of their political systems.

Canada's is a parliamentary system. Its head of government, Justin Trudeau, is elevated to that job by the legislature, of which he is also a member, and which his party, in collaboration with another, controls.

If Mr. Trudeau wants to pass a new law, he must merely ask his subordinates in his party and their allies to do it. There is no such thing as divided government and less cross-party horse-trading and legislative gridlock.

Canada is similar to what the United States would be if it had only a House of Representatives, whose speaker also oversaw federal agencies and foreign policy.

What America has instead is a system whose structure simultaneously requires cooperation across competing parties and discourages them from working together.

The result is an American system that not only moves slower and passes fewer laws than those of parliamentary models like Canada's, research has found, but stalls for years even on measures that enjoy widespread support among voters in both parties, such as universal background checks for gun purchases.

Many political scientists argue that the United States’ long-worsening gridlock runs much deeper than any one issue or the interest groups engaged with it, to the basic setup of its political system.

The scholar Juan Linz warned in a much-discussed 1990 essay, as much of the developing and formerly Soviet worlds moved to democracy, that those countries not follow what he called one of the foundational flaws of the United States: its presidency.

"The vast majority of the stable democracies in the world today are parliamentary regimes," Dr. Linz wrote.

Presidential systems, on the other hand, tended to collapse in coups or other violence, with only the United States having persisted since its origin.

It's telling that when American diplomats and technocrats help to set up new democracies abroad, they almost always model them on European-style parliaments.

Subsequent research has found that parliamentary systems also perform better at managing the economy and advancing rule of law than presidencies, if only for the comparative ease with which they can implement policy — witnessed in Canada's rapid response to gun violence or other crises.

America's legislative hurdles, requiring cooperation across the president, Senate and House to pass laws, are raised further by the fact that all three are elected under different rules.

None represents a straight national majority. Presidential elections favor some states over others. The Senate tilts especially toward rural voters. All three are elected on different schedules. As a result, single-party control is rare. Because competing parties typically control at least one of those three veto points on legislation, legislation is frequently vetoed.

Americans have come to accept, even embrace, divided government. But it is exceedingly uncommon. While Americans may see Canada's legislative efficiency as unusual, to the rest of the world it is American-style gridlock that looks odd.

Still, America's presidential system does not, on its own, explain what makes it function so differently from a country like Canada.

"As long as things are moderate, a presidential system is not so bad," said Lee Drutman, a political scientist who studies political reform.

Rather, he cited that America is nearly alone in combining a presidency with winner-take-all elections.

Proportional votes, common in most of the world, award seats to each party based on its share of the vote.

Under American-style elections, the party that wins 51 percent of a race controls 100 percent of the office it elects, while the party with 49 percent ends up with nothing.

This all but ensured that politics would coalesce between two parties because third-ranked parties rarely win office. And as those two parties came to represent geographically distinct electorates struggling for national control, their contests took on, for voters, a sensation of us-versus-them.

Canada, too, has winner-take-all elections, a practice inherited from Britain. Still, neither of those countries hold presidential contests, which pit one half of the nation against the other.

And in neither country do the executive and legislative branches share power, which, in times of divided government, extends the zero-sum nature of American elections into lawmaking, too. And not only on issues where the parties’ supporters disagree.

In 2013, shortly after a gunman killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., polls found that 81 percent of Republicans supported background checks for gun purchases. But when asked whether the Senate should pass such a bill — which would have required Republicans to side with the then-Democratic majority — support dropped to 57 percent. The measure never passed.

The episode was one of many suggesting that Americans often privilege partisan victory, or at least denying victory to the other side, over their own policy preferences, the scholar Lilliana Mason wrote in a book on partisanship.

"Even when policy debates crack open and an opportunity for compromise appears," Dr. Mason wrote, "partisans are psychologically motivated to look away."

Still, there is something unusual to Canada's model, too.

Most parliamentary systems, as in Europe, elect lawmakers proportionally. Voters select a party, which takes seats in the legislature proportional to their overall vote share. As a result, many different parties end up in office, and must join in a coalition to secure a governing majority. Lawmaking is less prone to gridlock than in America but it's not seamless, either: the prime minister must negotiate among the parties of their coalition.

Canada, like Britain, combines American-style elections, which produce what is not quite a two-party system in those countries but is close, with European-style parliaments.

As a result, Canada's prime minister usually oversees a legislative majority, allowing him or her to breeze through legislation even more easily than in European-style parliaments.

This moment is an exception: Mr. Trudeau's Liberal Party controls slightly less than half of the House of Commons. Still, his party dominates a legislative alliance in which he has only one partner. Canada also includes a Senate, though its members are appointed and rarely rock the boat.

But the Canadian system produces what Dr. Drutman called "unstable majorities," prone to whiplashing on policy.

"If you have a 52 percent margin for one party, and then you throw the bums out because four percent of the vote went the other way, now you’ve moved completely in the other direction," he said.

Gun laws are a case in point. After a 1989 mass shooting, Canadian lawmakers passed registration rules, but phased them in over several years because they were unpopular among rural communities.

Those rules were later abolished under a Conservative government. Though Mr. Trudeau has not reimposed the registry, he has tightened gun laws in other ways.

In a European-style system, by contrast, a four-point shift to the right or left might change only one party in the country's governing coalition, prompting a slighter policy change more proportional to the electorate's mood.

American liberals may thrill at the seeming ease with which Canada's often-left-leaning government can implement policy, much as conservatives may envy Britain's more right-wing, but similarly rapid, lawmaking under a similar system.

But it is the slow-and-steady European model, with its frustratingly incremental advances, that, over the long run, research finds, tend to prove the most stable and effective.

Mitch Smith and Daniel Victor

Since the devastating attack on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week, mass shootings around the country have been relentless, coming at a pace of more than two a day.

Some 20 shootings in which at least four people were hurt or killed have unfolded in a matter of nine days, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

The shootings came as Americans went through their ordinary routines. Outside a bar and liquor store in Michigan. At a house party in California. In a downtown area in Tennessee. And at a medical building in Tulsa, Okla., where four people were killed on Wednesday.

Chief Wendell Franklin of the Tulsa police lamented the relentlessness of mass shootings as he described "yet another act of violence upon an American city."

"I cannot emphasize enough that we train rigorously, over and over and over again, for not if but when," he said. "Because we have seen the violence that has taken place throughout the United States, and we would be naïve" to think it would not happen in Tulsa.

Grief has emanated from other cities, including Uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were killed, and Buffalo, where 10 people died at a grocery store in what the police described as a racist massacre. They were among more than 200 shootings this year in which at least four people were wounded or killed, an everyday reality that has plagued the country for years.

"I’m angry about it," Mayor John Tecklenburg of Charleston, S.C., said after 10 people were shot at an outdoor party in his city on Monday night. At a somber news conference, Mr. Tecklenburg recited statistics about mass shootings, most of which attract little national notice, and called for something to be done to stop them. "I’m fed up," he said.

In Tulsa, calls of the shooting at a medical building crackled across police radios just before 5 p.m. on Wednesday. As officers rushed inside — following a trail of bullet casings and yelling out "Tulsa police!" — they heard the gunshots end, officials said, then found that a man had killed four people and himself.

Chief Franklin said the gunman had recently undergone back surgery and was upset about continued pain. He killed the doctor who performed that surgery and three others using two guns purchased in recent days, including an AR-15-style rifle he bought the afternoon of the shooting, the chief said.

Officials described the Tulsa shooting as targeted. Chief Franklin said the gunman, identified by officials as Michael Louis, had a letter with him explaining that he wanted to kill Dr. Preston Phillips, who performed back surgery on him last month, as well as anyone who got in his way. Chief Franklin said the gunman had complained of continuing pain since being discharged from the hospital, and had returned for a follow-up visit the day before the attack.

Hospital officials described Dr. Phillips as a caring physician who sometimes ran late for his appointments because he spent extra time with his patients. The authorities say the gunman also killed Dr. Stephanie Husen, who practiced sports medicine; Amanda Glenn, an office worker with a supervisory role; and William Love, an Army veteran whose family said he sacrificed himself to save his wife.

The Tulsa shooting was not even the first mass shooting in Oklahoma since the Uvalde massacre on May 24. On Sunday, at a Memorial Day Weekend festival, eight people ranging in age from 9 to 56 were shot at the Old City Square of Taft, Okla., a small town about 40 miles from Tulsa. A 39-year-old woman died in that shooting.

In Chattanooga, Tenn., where six teenagers were shot as a group fought last weekend, Mayor Tim Kelly called for expanding background checks and so-called red flag laws, as well as raising the minimum age to buy certain weapons.

"Kids have always gotten into scuffles with each other," Mr. Kelly wrote on Twitter. "That's a tale that's as old as time. What is new is now they have access to handguns and firearms that leave behind bodies instead of bruised egos."

President Biden, a longtime supporter of stricter gun laws, addressed the country on Thursday night about the recent spate of shootings. But even as Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have been meeting in recent days to see if they can reach an agreement on legislation about guns, mental health and school safety, there is widespread skepticism that any sweeping deal will emerge.

"Our leaders ignore, gloss over or refuse to address the complex challenges and difficulties facing our country and communities," Kendra Horn, a former Democratic congresswoman from Oklahoma who is running for the Senate, said after the Tulsa shooting.

Most Republican officials oppose tightening gun restrictions, and agreements even on incremental measures that polls show have bipartisan support have been elusive.

Chief Franklin said he would be willing to share his thoughts on gun restrictions if asked by legislators, but he said his role was to enforce the laws as written. The chief said he believed that the gunman had legally bought both his weapons — a pistol from a pawnshop on Sunday, and a semiautomatic rifle from a gun store in the hours before the shooting.

Shortly after that purchase, at 4:52 p.m., the police received their first call of a shooting on the campus of Saint Francis Hospital. The call came from a patient who was meeting by video chat with a doctor inside the building when the doctor told the patient to ask for help.

A few minutes later, the first Tulsa officers arrived at the scene. By 4:58, as officers made their way through a labyrinth of hallways and offices on the building's second floor, they heard what they believe was the final shot, when the gunman killed himself.

Police officers in Uvalde have been criticized for not moving more quickly to confront the gunman inside a school classroom. Chief Franklin said Tulsa officers moved directly to where the gunman was believed to be, taking "immediate action without hesitation."

Patients and employees were already scrambling for cover.

"There was an initial ‘What was that?’" said Gannon Gill, a physician assistant who runs an orthopedic urgent care clinic. He turned to his patient and said: "Let's go. I don't think this is good."

He would later learn that some of his colleagues hid in bathrooms or storage closets. He guided his patient through exam rooms and interlocking hallways, away from the sound of the gunfire. They ran into a small group of colleagues, who joined them.

Mr. Gill crouched, moving quickly toward the closest exit. He and the group made it through the front door of the office and hustled to the parking garage. They were out in less than a minute.

Once in the garage, he discovered his phone in his pocket and called his wife.

"Don't freak out, I’m alive," he recalled telling her. He asked her to bring his car keys, which he realized he had left behind.

Jesus Jiménez and Alex Traub contributed reporting. Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

J. David Goodman

UVALDE, Texas — In the final moments of her life, Eva Mireles, a teacher at Robb Elementary School, was on the phone with her husband, Ruben Ruiz, a school district police officer, the senior county official said on Wednesday.

They spoke for the last time from opposite sides of the school walls: She was with her fourth-grade students in a pair of adjoining classrooms taken over by a gunman; he was outside the school, amid the fast-growing throng of armed officers who rushed to the scene.

"She's in the classroom and he's outside. It's terrifying," the Uvalde County judge, Bill Mitchell, said on Wednesday after being briefed by sheriff's deputies who were at the shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

The call was among several new details that have added to — and, in some cases, significantly altered — the shifting portrait of the shooting in Uvalde that has been offered by top officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott and the head of the state police, Steven McCraw.

The gunman's grandmother, whom he shot in the face at home minutes before bursting into the school, had been employed at the elementary school in years past, a top teachers’ union official said. The two officers who first approached the classrooms and were struck by bullets that were fired through the locked door were senior members of the Uvalde Police Department, a lieutenant and a sergeant, officials said.

And a door to the school, through which the gunman, Salvador Ramos, entered, had been closed, but not locked as it should have been — a crucial amendment to the official narrative outlined to reporters, grieving Uvalde families and viewers of broadcasts carried live around the nation from the usually quiet ranching city about 80 miles west of San Antonio.

The latest detail about the teacher's phone call to her husband is potentially an important one — suggesting that at least one of the officers arriving at the scene had information from inside the classrooms that could have informed the decision by the police to delay entry. A question remained as to whether 911 calls from children inside the classrooms, starting 30 minutes after the gunman arrived, were communicated to the commander at the scene.

Several times since last week, information presented by officials as fact in news conferences has later been changed or entirely retracted, further rattling an already stricken community and undermining the faith of many Texans in the official narrative of what happened, even among law enforcement officials and those who represent them.

The situation prompted Don McLaughlin, the mayor of Uvalde and a staunch conservative, to request a Justice Department investigation over the weekend, and led a statewide law enforcement union to issue a statement supporting that inquiry, in part, because "sources that Texans once saw as ironclad and completely reliable have now been proven false."

The reference was to the governor and the head of the state police, according to a spokeswoman for the union, the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas.

Mr. McCraw's agency, the Texas Department of Public Safety, oversees both the state police and the Texas Rangers, and it had been leading the investigation into the shooting and the response by the police until the Justice Department stepped in with its own review.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the state police, Travis Considine, referred questions to the local district attorney's office and said that going forward the department would not be providing updates on the investigation. The district attorney, Christina M. Busbee, did not respond to requests for an interview.

State police officials have been forced to amend portions of their timeline of events several times, including last week when it became clear that a school district police officer had not confronted the gunman before he entered the school. They did so again on Tuesday, when the department said that the gunman did not enter through a door that was being propped open. Instead, the closed door had not been locked.

"After examining video evidence we were able to conclude that after propping the door open with a rock, the teacher ran back inside when she saw the shooter, and removed the rock and the door shut," Mr. Considine said. "Investigators are now looking at why the door did not lock properly when it was shut."

The Justice Department announced its investigation on Sunday and has said that the inquiry would result in its own report on what took place at Robb Elementary School.

The superintendent of Uvalde schools said on Wednesday that students and teachers would not be returning to the elementary school in the fall. And Mr. Abbott directed the state to begin a review of security at all Texas schools before the coming academic year.

Ms. Mireles, a teacher of 17 years and an avid hiker who took pride in teaching at a mostly Hispanic school, was shot and killed trying to protect her students, according to her aunt Lydia Martinez Delgado.

Her husband, Mr. Ruiz, who had rushed to the scene, was prevented by other police officers from going inside. "He could not go into the classroom where all the shooting victims were at," Ms. Martinez Delgado said in an interview last week.

Officer Ruiz declined a request for an interview.

It was not clear when the two spoke or for how long during the 78 minutes that elapsed between the first calls that came in to 911 of a gunman at the school and the moment when a tactical team from the Border Patrol stormed into the room and killed him. Mr. Mitchell, the county judge, said deputy sheriffs who had been at the school recounted the call.

"I don't know what was said," Mr. Mitchell said, though the gist of it appeared to be, he said, that the gunman was already on the attack. "He's outside hearing his wife: ‘I’m dying,’" he said, before cautioning that he did not know precisely what words were exchanged.

Mr. Mitchell said he did not know if the school district officer had told the chief of his six-member department, Pete Arredondo, about the call.

"He was talking to his wife. Whether that was conveyed to Arredondo or anyone else, I don't know," said the judge, who is the county's executive and top official.

The state police have said it was Chief Arredondo's decision to wait to send officers into the classrooms until specialized equipment and more highly trained officers could arrive, a decision that Mr. McCraw called "wrong" in a news conference on Friday.

A vast majority of the shooting inside the classrooms, which were joined in the middle, took place just after the gunman entered, at 11:33 a.m., Mr. McCraw said then. The gunman was killed at about 12:51 p.m.

While the motive of the gunman remained unclear, officials said that he, like so many in Uvalde, had a connection to the elementary school.

He lived with his grandmother Celia Martinez Gonzales, 66, in a modest home near the school. She used to be an "employee at the school," said Zeph Capo, the president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers; a state law enforcement official confirmed her former employment at the school.

Ms. Martinez Gonzales was shot but not killed last week. Afterward Mr. Ramos fled her home and crashed her pickup truck, which neighbors said he could barely drive, into a ditch near the school. He emerged with a gun, an AR-15-style rifle, one of two that he had bought shortly after his 18th birthday earlier in the month.

In an instant the shooting redefined life in Uvalde, a place that used to be known, by those who knew it at all, for its trees, its honey and its surrounding hunting ranches.

"This is the single most devastating, disastrous event that ever has happened in Uvalde County," Mr. Mitchell, the county judge, said. "But we will rise. We will survive."

Eduardo Medina contributed reporting.