Biden: Obama Won’t Give Up on Gun Control

Vice President Joseph R. Biden said Tuesday the fight for congressional action on gun legislation is far from over while outlining unilateral steps the Obama administration has taken to combat gun violence in the wake of the Connecticut school shootings in December.

The address was simultaneously a summary of what President Obama has been able to do through executive actions since the shootings in Newtown, Conn., and a rallying cry to remind voters and lawmakers that neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Obama is going to let the issue fade from public memory.

“The most important message to take from here today is the president and I are a team,” Mr. Biden said. “We have not given up. Our friends in the House and Senate, they have not given up.”

Mr. Biden said because of a “perverted” rule requiring 60 votes to herd off potential filibusters in the Senate, the 41 Republicans and four Democrats who opposed the administration’s gun control bill were able to block it even though it had the support of 51 Democrats and four Republicans.

“I know for a fact some of them wonder about, now, whether that was a prudent vote,” said Mr. Biden, who described the shooting deaths of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School as “the straw that broke the camel’s back” in the gun debate.

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