President Joe Biden began Independence Day by sharing a message that looked to the country’s future, but quickly had to respond to another mass shooting in the United States.
“Jill and I are shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day,” the President said in a statement Monday after at least six people were killed in a shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, during a July Fourth parade.
Biden noted that he had “surged Federal law enforcement to assist in the urgent search for the shooter,” and pointed to the gun safety legislation he recently signed into law. (Authorities said Monday evening they have taken into custody “a person of interest” connected to the shooting.) “But there is much more work to do, and I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence,” Biden added.
