Vice President Biden will present his gun-violence working group's recommendations to President Obama by next Tuesday.
Biden's remarks, at the opening of a meeting on Thursday with sportsmen and wildlife-interest groups, come just hours before he is set to meet with representatives of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun-owners' groups.
“I have committed to him that I will have the recommendations to him by Tuesday,” Biden said.
Biden had been given an end-of-month deadline to offer his task force’s recommendations to Obama. The president formed the group after 20 6- and 7-year-olds were killed in a mass shooting last month at a Connecticut elementary school. Seven adults were also killed in the rampage.
Biden met with gun-control and gun-safety groups Wednesday, whose members he said emphasized strengthening criminal background checks for gun owners. Biden said this included “universal background checks, not just closing the gun-show loophole.”
Biden also suggested that the federal government would revamp the way it collects data on gun violence, comparing current limits on data-gathering with the 1970s-era restrictions on federal research on the causes of traffic fatalities.
He emphasized that the government needs to gather information on “what kind of weapons are used most to kill people” and “what kind of weapons are trafficked weapons” to better evaluate the problem of gun violence.
The announcement came at the start of a packed day of meetings for the vice president. In addition to the meetings with the NRA and sportsmen's groups, Biden will meet Thursday evening with entertainment industry representatives.
For more on Biden's comments, click here.
