Biden lobbies for tighter gun limits, hours after son’s firearm conviction

President Biden called for stiffer background checks during a speech to a gun safety group Tuesday, hours after his son Hunter was convicted by a jury of lying on his firearm application.

Mr. Biden, speaking to Everytown for Gun Safety’s annual training conference in Washington, did not address his son’s felony in his public appearance following the verdict.

Rather, the main disruption was a group of protesters who highlighted the violence in Gaza.

“They care, innocent children have been lost,” Mr. Biden said in defense of the protesters before returning to the main topic of preventing gun violence.

He described gun violence prevention as “a passion of mine for a long, long time,” pointing to efforts to ban untraceable “ghost” guns and increase mental-health resources at schools impacted by violence.

“It’s time to do once again what I did when I was a senator — ban assault weapons,” he said. “I mean it.”

Mr. Biden is making gun control a cornerstone of his reelection campaign, pointing to the scourge of mass shootings and betting the issue will win over voters he desperately needs to win in November. His campaign released a pre-speech memo that said 70% of Black voters and two-thirds of Latino voters support new gun measures.

“By the way, it’s time we establish universal background checks,” Mr. Biden said to cheers.

But the timing of his message couldn’t have been more awkward. Earlier in the day, a federal jury in Delaware found Hunter Biden guilty of trying to circumvent the background-check system his father wants to expand.

Hunter Biden was convicted in Wilmington of three felony counts stemming from the purchase of a gun in October 2018 while in the throes of a crack addiction, making him the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime. The investigation started when Hallie Biden, his sister-in-law-turned girlfriend, discarded the gun in a grocery store trash can.

In a sudden update, the White House said Mr. Biden would head home to Wilmington after the speech, presumably to comfort his son.

Earlier Tuesday, Mr. Biden released a statement that accepted the verdict and focused on Hunter Biden’s attempts to overcome drug addiction.

The conviction did not seem to undercut Mr. Biden’s welcome inside Everytown’s event at the Washington Hilton.

“Four more years!” the crowd shouted as Mr. Biden took the stage.

Mr. Biden’s opponent, former President Donald Trump, is running in the opposite direction on gun policy.

Accepting the National Rifle Association’s endorsement in May, Mr. Trump said he was “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House” and that Mr. Biden “has a 40-year-record of trying to rip firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.”

“We’ve got to get gun owners to vote,” Mr. Trump said.

Gun violence has been a major U.S. scourge across administrations.

Mr. Trump pledged to get tough on background checks after the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in 2018, only to back down because of a lack of political support within the GOP.

The 2022 mass shooting at Uvalde Elementary School in Texas was a major tragedy during Mr. Biden’s presidency. It supercharged his efforts to ban military-style weapons.

Mass shootings, defined as incidents in which four or more people die within 24 hours, continued to plague the U.S. in 2023, with 217 deaths from 42 events, according to a database from The Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University.

“We have no choice, we cannot give up trying,” Mr. Biden said. “We’re gonna get there.”