we can have a longer and larger conversation.

(multiple cameras clicking)

As a consequence of what I think we'd all agree is an incident

that sort of shocked the conscience of the American

people, unlike anything that I've seen or felt, and we've

been around a long time, you know, all the time I've been

in public life, there have been a number of tragedies that have

occurred and natural catastrophes, but I've never

quite seen anything that has shocked the consciousness of

the American people like six and seven-year-old kids being

riddled with bullets in a classroom, in a neighborhood,

in an area that was considered to be immune to this kind of

behavior and had done everything that seemed logical and able to

be done to protect the children in that school.

And so the President asked me, because I had spent so much time

on these issues relating particularly to guns and

violence in my years in the Senate, whether or not we would

-- and admittedly it's quick, in a matter of less than a month --

put together a set of proposals or direction that we could move

the federal government that would enhance the possibility

that or lessen the possibility this kind of thing could

happen again.

We know that it is -- there is no silver bullet.

There is no, as one of my friends said no seat belt

that you can put on to assure that you will not be in this

circumstance again.

But I asked the Cabinet to come together, the Attorney General,

Homeland Security, the Department of Education,

Health and Human Service, et cetera, because we know this

is a complex problem.

We know there is no single answer.

And quite frankly, we don't even know whether some of the things

people think impact on this actually impact on it or not.

And so I want you to know you have not been, quote, singled

out for help, but we've asked a whole lot of people.

I want to give you a sense of the meetings we've had so far.

We met with the law enforcement community which has obviously

one perspective.

And we met with -- and there is a wide range of those

communities and they don't always agree on anything from

weapons to preventative action that can be taken

for the violence.

We met with the medical community, a dozen or more

of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the AMA,

the American Academy of Neurology, et cetera,

more than a dozen leading institutions.

We've met with at risk groups, at risk youth and child advocacy

communities from the obvious one that everyone knows from Boys

and Girls Clubs, the YMCA, to the After School Alliance and

there is more than a dozen of those we met with.

Domestic violence prevention community, which I've done a

great deal of work on having authored the Violence Against

Women Act, and they have various views and suggestions.

Legal and justice organizations, from the ABA to other legal and

judicial organizations we've had in as well.

Civil rights organizations.

The civil, excuse me, participation and national

service organizations from the Kiwanis Club to the Rotary Club

and everything in between and beyond.

Youth groups.

Campus groups.

Peace groups, et cetera.

Gun safety advocates from the Brady group to all of the major

gun safety organizations in the country.

More than a dozen of them.

The educators and parents who are groping for answers.

The mental health community including the American Academy

of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, to NIH, we've been

through all of those groups.

Not an extensive study but just a meeting on literature that the

staff has been working and government wide to much of

what you already had, but some of which has been new

trying to devour.

And maybe the most interesting meeting we had was with an

interfaith group representing for the first time in all the

time I have been doing this, not only the traditional mainstream

Protestant churches and the Catholic Conference of Bishops,

but evangelical groups who generally have been reluctant

to engage in this because it's been viewed as maybe an attack

on cultural norms relating to rural communities and gun

ownership and the like.

But we've had, all of these groups have shown up including

the leaders of the Muslim community, the Hindu community,

et cetera.

And it was really a fascinating discussion, very enlightening, I

think there is a moral dimension to this, to state the obvious.

And then we met with sportsmen and rural groups which are

distinct from but not necessarily disagree with

the gun owner groups from the NRA and others but they have a

different perspective.

They include the Association of Fish and Wildlife, Blue Water

Strategies, the Outdoor Industry Association, et cetera.

Yesterday we met with the gun owners from, ranging groups from

the Defense of Small Arms Advisory Council headed by

a retired major general, to firearms and export roundtable

which that's their business, to independent firearms owners,

the NRA, et cetera.

And there is actually difference among them as well.

It's not a uniformed view.

And we also met with retailers because they're a part of this

potential solution in terms of background checks and the like.

All the box stores, the big five sporting goods operations and

who sell an awful lot of weapons.

And we met with your colleagues in Hollywood yesterday, the,

quote, entertainment industry, but you're entertainment as

well, but the entertainment industry as it relates to film

and broadcasting.

And we will be meeting with technology experts because to

overstate the case, there is a lot could change if,

for example, every gun purchased could only be fired by the

person who purchased it because it literally would be unable to

be fired.

That technology exists but it's extremely expensive.

But if that were available on every weapon sold, there is,

there is significant evidence that that would -- may very well

have curtailed what happened up in Connecticut because had the

young man not had access to his mother's arsenal, he may or may

not have been able to get a gun.

And then we're meeting with outfits involved in social

education and you and the video gaming industry.

And I come to this meeting with no judgment.

You all know the judgments other people have made.

And I think we had a very productive meeting yesterday

with the broadcast and film industry.

And they had some very constructive ideas as to

how they could help.

And so we're looking for help.

I understand two of you here are researchers in assessing the

impact, if any, on behavior, of certain behaviors and so we're

anxious to see if there is anything you can suggest to us

that you think would be -- would help, as this President has

said, diminish the possibility even if we only save one kid's

life as a consequence.

We have also spoken, by the way, at length with, you know, we

have a problem beyond, quote, the massacres, the Columbines,

through the Aurora's to Connecticut, you know,

there is ten thousand people a year gunned down in our cities.

Different motives, different reasons, different explanations.

But, you know, it's a real problem.

It's serious.

And one of the things that I know of no way to gather any

real empirical data on, and you all may, is I make an analogy to

when we first started dealing with the issue of crack cocaine,

Moynihan and I, back in the early '80s when it was coming --

from late '70s, early '80s from the Bahamas, actually, is when

it first hit.

And although I was senior, I was not equal to Daniel Patrick

Moynihan, who was a great mind.

And I'll never forget him standing up on the floor of the

Senate and holding up what was called then a photostatic copy

of a newspaper, front page of newspapers from I think it was

1937 or '8 where one of the mafia bosses was gunned down

in a barber chair and riddled with blood and just about

decapitated with machine gun and it made the front page of every

paper in America.

Then he held up, if I'm not mistaken, a New York Times and

he referenced a story and it happened, if I'm not mistaken,

it was in the Bronx where an entire family, grandmother,

mother, father, three, four children, aunt, uncle were

murdered execution style in their apartment.

And it made page 57 of the New York Times.

And we refer to it as the defining deviancy down.

And there is no measure that I'm aware of to be able to determine

whether or not there is a coarsening of our culture in

a way that is not healthy.

I don't know the answer to that question.

But and I'm not sure what impact it would have or wouldn't have

on the kind of events we're looking at.

But I wanted to tell you what we're about.

The end result of this is I am going to be making a

recommendation, not as a consequence of long, drawn out

hearings, which are useful, but because there is an awful lot of

research and material that's been lying around over the last

ten years in the various agencies from recommendations

on having a federal drug -- excuse me, a federal weapons

trafficking statute, to universal background checks,

to making more widely available mental health assistance.

And so I'm going to be submitting to the President

a proposal as to how to proceed.

I'm shooting for Tuesday.

I hope I get it done by then -- we get it done by then,

Cabinet Members.

And so I just wanted to fill you guys in on what

it is we're about.

And with that, I'd like to disinvite my friends

in the press -- (laughter)

(indistinct chatter)

Oh, I thought we had a very straightforward,

productive meeting.

The Press: What did you think about what they said about the

meeting Mr. Vice President?

The Vice President: I don't have any comment about what anybody said

about the meetings.

White House Staff Member: Thank you.

The Vice President: Thank you.