President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden traveled to Lewiston, Maine, on Friday afternoon to pay respects to the victims of a mass shooting last week that killed 18 people, and to grieve with families and community members.
Biden said in remarks to reporters in Maine that he also met with first responders and laid flowers at a local memorial site. "No pain is the same, but we know what it's like to lose a piece of our soul," the president added. "And the depths of a loss is so profound. Some of us have been there."
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine., said in remarks delivered during Biden's trip: “It is fitting that a President who has known the depths of personal grief has come to Maine and to Lewiston today to share the grief of our families and our state."
In 1972, Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and daughter, Naomi, who was 13-years-old at the time were killed in a car accident. His son Beau Biden died in 2015 after fighting brain cancer.
During the president's remarks in Maine, he reflected on the other sites of mass shootings he has visited. "Too many to count," he said.
"Unfortunately, this type of trip by the president has become too, too familiar," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday at a White House briefing.
She continued, "Too many times, the president and the first lady have traveled to communities completely torn apart by gun violence. As the president said last week, this is not normal, and we can’t accept it as normal."
Biden has been calling on Congress to pass a new assault weapons ban, universal background checks and help states adopt and strengthen red flag laws, the White House said.
He reiterated those calls during his Friday remarks. "This is about common sense," Biden said. "Reasonable, responsible measures to protect our children, our families, our communities, because regardless of our politics, this is about protecting our freedom to go to a bowling alley, a restaurant, school, church, without being shot and killed."
The deputy director of the White House's Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Greg Jackson, has been on the ground in Maine helping victims as part of the federal government's response to the tragedy.
On Oct. 25, a gunman opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar in the city of Lewiston, setting off a multistate manhunt for the suspect. Officials found the shooter dead two days later from “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” according to Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck.
Dozens were also injured, officials said, in what was the state's deadliest mass shooting.
After the shooting, Biden called on Republicans in Congress to “fulfill their duty to protect the American people.”
“Work with us to pass a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to enact universal background checks, to require safe storage of guns, and end immunity from liability for gun manufacturers,” Biden said. “This is the very least we owe every American who will now bear the scars — physical and mental — of this latest attack.”
