FILE - President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visit a memorial at Robb Elementary School to pay their respects to the victims of the mass shooting, May 29, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas. Biden will speak at a summit in Connecticut on Friday, June 16, 2023, to mark the first anniversary of a gun safety law signed after the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas.
Last year's law, signed just weeks after a mass shooting that killed 19 elementary school children and two teachers in Uvalde, toughened background checks for the youngest gun buyers, sought to keep firearms from domestic violence offenders and aimed to help states put in place red flag laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons away from people adjudged to be dangerous.
“I think there’s no question about it, the passage was a watershed moment,” said John Feinblatt, head of Everytown for Gun Safety. The law “clearly broke a log jam.” That puts the country on a faster pace for mass killings than in any other year since 2006, according to the database, which defines a mass killing as one in which four or more people are killed, not including the perpetrator, within a 24-hour period.