Biden mourns the loss of "18 precious souls" in Maine

The president and first lady are meeting with people who survived last week's attack, as well as many of the families who lost loved ones.

The meetings are closed to the press.

The president lamented the loss of life in the mass shooting. "Eighteen precious souls stolen. Thirteen wounded," he said. "...All of them lived lives of love and service and sacrifice."

Mr. Biden also called attention to the survivors of the shooting. 

"We also remember the survivors who will forever carry the memories and the physical and emotional scars of this," he said.

The president said that "too many Americans have lost loved ones or survived the trauma of gun violence."

"Regardless of our politics, this is about protecting our freedom to go to a bowling alley, a restaurant a school, a church — without being shot and killed," the president said.

"Scripture says the Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit — and saves the crushed in spirit," the president said. "Our prayer is that the crushed in spirit survive this more rapidly than otherwise."

The president did not call on Congress to pass specific gun control measures. 

The president and first lady are at Just-In-Time Recreation, the bowling alley where the gunman shot several people. 

They're meeting with first responders and nurses who tended to the victims, as well as community leaders. 

"The president and the first lady are meeting with first responders, including paramedics, health care providers, nurses, firefighters, and other law enforcement officials on the front lines of the response," the White House said.

Along the route from the bar to the bowling alley, onlookers lined the streets to watch the president's motorcade. 

President Biden and the first lady made a stop at Schemengees Bar & Grille, one of the locations of the mass shooting, where a memorial has been set up in honor of the victims. 

Mr. Biden placed a bouquet of flowers at the memorial, and he and the first lady observed the memorial in a moment of silence.

Flowers, carved pumpkins and signs mark the site. 

"I am at a loss for words," Schemengees wrote on Facebook last week. "In a split second your world gets turn upside down for no good reason. We loss great people in this community. How can we make any sense of this. Sending out prayers to everyone." 

President Biden has landed in Maine. Several members of the state's congressional delegation are traveling with him — Republican Sen. Susan Collins and independent Sen. Angus King, as well as Rep. Chellie Pingree. First lady Jill Biden greeted them at the airport — she arrived separately from New York.

Law enforcement and gunman Robert Card's Army Reserve unit received warnings about his mental health and the threat he might pose in the months leading up to the shooting.

Three months before the mass shooting, Army Reserve unit leaders said he was "behaving erratically," and the Army decided he shouldn't have a weapon, handle ammunition or "participate in live fire activity," according to an Army spokesperson. 

And according to a statement  by Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, his office was contacted in May by members of Card's family, who were concerned about his mental health and access to weapons. Merry said a deputy within his office contacted the reservist's Army Reserve training group, "who assured our office that they would ensure that (he) received medical attention."

Maine has a law on the books intended to deal with potentially dangerous individuals with firearms, a "yellow-flag law." Many states have red-flag laws, which enable family members or roommates of gun owners who they suspect may pose an immediate violent threat to seek an emergency court order forcing them to temporarily give up their firearms, though the gun owners may appeal the order. 

Maine's yellow-flag law — the only one of its kind in the country, CBS News Boston notes — has a few more steps. Anyone who suspects a gun owner is an imminent threat, whether that's a close relative or a police officer, may report the gun owner to the police. It then falls to local law enforcement to take the individual into protective custody, order a mental health evaluation from a medical expert, and if the doctor and police deem necessary, apply for a court order to temporarily take possession of any firearms. 

CBS News Boston points out that in Card's case, many people close to him called law enforcement at the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office. But the sheriff's office never took the next step — bringing Card into protective custody and going through the state's yellow-flag law.

Despite opposition from congressional Republicans, the president has repeatedly pushed for bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. 

"It is within our power to once again ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to require safe storage of guns, to end gun manufacturers' immunity from liability, and to enact universal background checks," Mr. Biden said in July after deadly shootings in Philadelphia, Fort Worth, Texas, Baltimore and Chicago.

But successful action in Congress on those fronts is unlikely. Republicans control the House, and Democrats only narrowly control the Senate. 

Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who represents Lewiston in Congress, previously opposed gun control measures but reversed his stance last week and is now calling for an assault weapons ban.

Last year, Congress passed additional gun control measures with some bipartisan support, its first major gun legislation in three decades. But the president continues to insist that's insufficient. 

"Too many times, the president and the first Lady have traveled to communities completely torn apart by gun violence," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. "As the president said last week, this is not normal, and we can't accept it as normal. So, while Friday will be a solemn day and a time for the president to be with Americans who are in mourning, he will also continue to demand that Congress act."

Mr. Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, after a deadly mass shooting at an elementary school. Days before that, they visited a memorial site in Buffalo, New York, where 10 people lost their lives in a racially motivated shooting.