President Biden opened his remarks from the White House Tuesday night with a deep sigh, after a shooter killed at least 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Texas. It was a sigh indicative of a fresh horror and yet, an all-too familiar one. 

"I had hoped when I became president I would not have to do this — again," the president said, with longtime teacher first lady Jill Biden at his side. "Another massacre. Uvalde, Texas. An elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third and fourth graders. And how many scores of little children who witnessed what happened — see their friends die, as if they're in a battlefield, for God's sake. They'll live with it the rest of their lives." 

Mr. Biden was on his way back from Asia when it happened, and after he was briefed, he ordered the flags at the White House and all other federal buildings to be flown at half-staff. 

"What struck me on that 17-hour flight what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why?" the president questioned. "They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost, but these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America. Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage?"

A somber but frustrated president said he is "sick and tired" of mass shootings like this, and "we have to act."

A somber but frustrated president said he is "sick and tired" of mass shootings like this, and "we have to act." 

"As a nation, we have to ask, when in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?" Mr. Biden said. "When in God's name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?"