Key Takeaways:

• Following the shooting of 19 pupils at a Texas elementary school by a teen, US President Joe Biden made a personal appeal Tuesday night to curb America's gun culture.

After a gunman, a teenage teenager shot and killed 19 students at a Texas elementary school, US President Joe Biden made a personal appeal to reduce America's gun culture Tuesday night. The horrible episode, which is the bloodiest shooting at a US school after 20 children as well as six adults were mowed down at Sandy Hook just about a decade ago, has once again focused attention on the US's lax gun control laws and powerful lobbyists who fight any attempt to restrict gun sales. Biden called for action from the White House less than an hour after the Texas massacres, blaming gun makers and their backers for delaying targeted reform.

Joe Biden's significant statements on the Texas school tragedy and gun control laws are as follows:

> "Mass shootings decreased after the Assault Weapons Ban was passed in 1994. Mass shootings tripled after the prohibition expired [in 2004]. It's absurd that an 18-year-old can stroll into a gun store and purchase assault weapons."

> "We must act (referring to members of Congress) and let those who have struck, delayed, or stopped common-sense gun legislation know that we will not forget."

> "It's like failing a piece of your soul when you lose a child. You feel like you're being sucked into a hollowness in your chest... you're never the same ".

> "When will we confront the gun lobby in God's name? Why are we willing to put up with this? Why do we resume to allow this to happen?"

> "These types of mass shootings are quite rare in other parts of the world (referring to other nations, like the UK, that do not have this level of gun violence). Why?"