President Biden used the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Saturday, which killed five people and injured 25 others, to call for a ban on "assault weapons."
While acknowledging the motive remains unknown, Biden connected the shooting at Club Q to the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, six years ago, where a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others.
"While no motive in this attack is yet clear, we know that the LGBTQI+ community has been subjected to horrific hate violence in recent years," Biden said in a statement. "Gun violence continues to have a devastating and particular impact on LGBTQI+ communities across our nation and threats of violence are increasing.”
"Gun violence continues to have a devastating and particular impact on LGBTQI+ communities across our nation and threats of violence are increasing," he continued. "We saw it six years ago in Orlando, when our nation suffered the deadliest attack affecting the LGBTQI+ community in American history."
Biden then called for an "assault weapons ban."
"We must address the public health epidemic of gun violence in all of its forms,” the president added. “Earlier this year, I signed the most significant gun safety law in nearly three decades, in addition to taking other historic actions. But we must do more. We need to enact an assault weapons ban to get weapons of war off America’s streets.”
INBOX: President Joe Biden statement on Colorado Springs LGBT club shooting, "We must drive out the inequities that contribute to violence against LGBTQI+ people. We cannot and must not tolerate hate." pic.twitter.com/2Jo1jiOErb
— Jason Lemon (@JasonLemon) November 20, 2022
The suspected shooter, identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, used a semiautomatic rifle during the attack, which ended after “at least two heroic people” at the club “confronted and fought with the suspect,” Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said.
Authorities are investigating whether the mass shooting was a hate crime.