required to have the same requirements held to him or her. we know what to do. congress needs to act. let me be clear about something. if this congress refuses to act, we need a new congress. [ cheers and applause ] and we need states to act as well. not every state has a governor as competent as governor lamont and i mean that. but they can do a lot more. look what the governor has done here in this state. less than two weeks ago here in connecticut, governor lamont signed a bipartisan legislation with more than a dozen measures to prove gun safety. from providing open carry and strengthenin ing prohibiting open carry. illinois, washington state, passed assault weapons bans this year. bringing the total to ten states, the district of
now, i have talked to white house officials and this is an issue that president biden has cared deeply about from the beginning. and it is one that they have worked behind the scenes to try to address in the ways that they can in the executive, like, for example, taking fema-like responses, to show you how commonplace this has become, where they talk about how they can help communities, not just in the short-term, but also in the long-term. but that aside, the president making clear that it is not only the executive that needs to act and do more, but also congress. and i have been speaking to advocates here as well as in anticipation of this event, and they have expressed optimism about the legislation passed a year ago and where their movement is now. but it is a long way to go. and just to note, ten years ago in 2013 after the shooting at sandy hook, former president barack obama was the one giving the speech here. ten years later, we re talking about gun violence still and the conti
have to take action. have to move. have to do something and so what happened? we began to continue to fight again. for a while there, there are only about two dozen of us in the congress or vice president or when i was as president who thought anything could be done. we did pass the most meaningful gun safety law in 30 years. we did overcome an unrelenting opposition of the gun lobby to gun manufacturers and so many politicians who hide behind the belief that they ll never have to pay a price for their inaction. when they oppose common sense gun legislation. and we beat them. we beat them. [ cheers and applause ] and we did it through a bipartisan effort that included a majority of responsible gun owners. because whether you re a democrat or a republican, we al want families to be safe. we all want to drop them off at a house of worship, the movies,
remarks, he would punctuate his words, making clear that there needs to be more action on this issue. and this was a president biden who arrived as the consoler in chief. he began by sympathizing with the loss of some of those in the crowd. several hundred people here, some of them are victims of gun violence, some of them from the mass shootings that we have covered and so he sympathized with that loss, but also expressed optimism by saying that this was a movement that was garnering more momentum and punctuated by the legislation passed a year ago. and just to go through some of that, which president biden also ticked through that included toughening background checks as well as closing a loophole for domestic violence laws, and helping states with red flag laws. and while he did urge congress to act, there is also a reality that that action has been stalled. and so he also called on states, as connecticut has done, to pass their own red flag laws to try to prevent gun violence.
we have been listening to president biden speaking at the safer communities summit in west hartford, connecticut. the president marking one year since passing the bipartisan safer communities act, the most sweeping piece of gun control legislation passed in the united states in some 30 years. the president saying, it is a first step, quote, we are not finished, calling for more, a new legislative ban on assault weapons, a ban on high capacity magazines and more expensive red flag laws. we want to go to cnn s priscilla alvarez who is there for us. i found it notable, the president putting out a call not only to congress, but also to voters. the president saying this congress needs to act, and if they refuse to, we, quote, need a new congress. reporter: that s right. this was an impassioned speech by president biden. it went about 30 minutes and regularly during that, his