President Joe Biden addressed the nation Tuesday night shortly after returning to the White House from a five-day trip to Asia that was bookended by “horrific” mass tragedy.
“Why are we willing to live with this carnage,” the president asked rhetorically in his remarks. “Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God's name is our backbone...?"
Biden was on Air Force One on Tuesday afternoon when officials said a gunman acting alone killed at least 18 students and a teacher at a Texas elementary school. He had departed for Asia last week just two days after he met with victims’ families after a hate-motivated shooter killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store. The back-to-back tragedies served as a sobering reminder of the frequency and brutality of the American epidemic of mass gun violence.
Read more via NPR: What we know so far about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas
