After the massacre at an elementary school in the state of Texas, US President Joe Biden called for stricter gun laws. “As a nation, we have to ask ourselves when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby,” Biden said Tuesday night (local time) at the White House. “The idea that an 18-year-old boy can walk into a gun store and buy two assault rifles is just wrong.”

“I’m disgusted and tired,” he added. “Don’t tell me we can’t have any say in this slaughter,” he said, speaking to Republicans opposed to stricter gun laws. The flood of weapons in the country, especially assault rifles, must be more tightly regulated.

Since the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in Connecticut state ten years ago, there have been more than 900 incidents of reported shooting on school grounds, Biden said. You can’t prevent every tragedy with stricter gun laws – but these laws have positive effects.

In his speech, Biden also remembered his son Beau, who died of cancer in 2015, and his daughter, who was killed in a car accident in 1972. “Losing a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped out,” he said. Next to him was his wife Jill. Biden had just returned to Washington from a trip to Asia.