Biden, first lady visit Maine to grieve with community in wake of Lewiston mass shooting

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are visiting Maine to grieve with a community reeling from a mass shooting that left 18 other folks lifeless and 13 others wounded.

The Bidens arrived in Lewiston on Friday afternoon, the place they’re assembly with households and first responders. They have been greeted upon their arrival through Governor Janet Mills, Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline and different native officers.

Their first prevent was once Schemengees Bar, one of the places of ultimate week’s mass shooting. Biden carried a bouquet of white plants in one hand and held the first lady’s hand in the opposite as they stopped at a memorial positioned out of doors the bar with candles and indicators, and held a second of silence.

Biden may be scheduled to ship remarks paying admire to the sufferers and renew his name for an attack guns ban.

It’s a go back and forth that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned has develop into “far too familiar.”

“Too many times, the president and the first lady have traveled to communities completely torn apart by gun violence,” Jean-Pierre informed newshounds Thursday. “As the president said last week, this is not normal, and we can’t accept it as normal.”

The Oct. 25 rampage spread out when a gunman armed with a semi-automatic weapon entered a bowling alley the place a kids’s league was once happening and a neighborhood bar. A two-day manhunt ensued for suspected gunman Robert Card, a 40-year-old U.S. Army reservist, who was once discovered lifeless of an obvious self-inflicted gunshot wound, government mentioned.

Three firearms have been recovered from Card’s automotive and on his frame that seemed to were bought legally, officers mentioned.

Card skilled declining psychological well being in the months main up to the shooting and government have been warned through his members of the family and others about his relating to habits, government mentioned, main many to query how the shooting may have been avoided.

Ahead of Biden’s visit, a White House reliable highlighted what the management says it has performed at the floor in the times following the shooting, together with the coordination of federal sources like expansive sufferer products and services equipped through the FBI and Justice Department in addition to the deployment of behavioral well being and public well being team of workers enhance from the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Recovering from this attack will be long and difficult, and President Biden is committed to marshaling resources from across the federal government to support Lewiston every step of the way,” Stefanie Feldman, the director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, mentioned in a commentary.

“He will also continue to be relentless in doing everything in his power to stop the epidemic of gun violence tearing our communities apart and urging Congress to act on commonsense gun safety legislation,” Feldman mentioned.

First responding the Maine shooting, Biden pointed to growth on addressing gun violence with ultimate 12 months’s passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first main piece of gun reform regulation in 40 years — however mentioned it is not sufficient.

“Today, in the wake of yet another tragedy, I urge Republican lawmakers 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,” he mentioned the day after the Maine shooting.

But an attack guns ban has no trail ahead in the present Congress, the place Republicans stand adverse to prohibiting attack rifles and different military-grade guns.

One lawmaker, regardless that, has shifted his stance in the aftermath of the Maine tragedy.

“I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime,” Rep. Jared Golden, a conservative Democrat who represents the district that incorporates Lewiston, mentioned ultimate week. “The time has come for me to take responsibility for this failure,” he mentioned. “Which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing.”

ABC News’ Justin Gomez contributed to this file.