U.S. President Joe Biden issued a statement on the White House website on April 16 about the mass shooting in Indianapolis, Indiana, expressing concern about the shooting and saying “gun violence” has become an “pandemic” in the United States and action must be taken to contain it.
Biden said in a statement that the Department of Homeland Security sent him and Vice President Harris a briefing on the mass shooting in Indiana. “Today’s briefing is just the latest in a series of tragedies,” Biden said, referring to a spate of shootings in Atlanta, Georgia, Boulder, Colorado, and Rock Hill, South Carolina.
In a statement, he announced that the White House, public buildings and sites, as well as military posts and embassies, had been ordered to lower their flags at half-mast to pay their condolences to the victims.
There have been at least 147 mass shootings in the United States in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive. “Gun violence is an pandemic in the United States, and we should not accept it and must act,” Biden said in a statement.
In his statement, he called on the Justice Department to be vigilant to better protect Americans from gun violence and urged Congress to heed the calls of the American people, including the vast majority of gun owners, to enact common-sense gun violence prevention legislation, such as universal background checks and a ban on weapons of war and high-capacity ammunition.
Biden’s statement came as the Indiana shooting was still under investigation, and police said the suspect was found dead in addition to the eight victims of the shooting, but could not be identified.
