Biden to make speech on guns Thursday

(CNN) -- President Joe Biden will deliver a speech on guns Thursday night as the US confronts another mass shooting, the White House said.

The speech will take place at 7:30 p.m. ET at the White House.

The remarks will amount to Biden's most fulsome speech about guns since a massacre at a Texas elementary school last week.

Since then, a string of additional mass shootings have unfolded in states across the country, including at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical center on Wednesday. That shooting left five dead, including the gunman.

Biden has selectively waded into the debate over gun control but has stopped short of endorsing any specific legislative action to prevent further carnage.

On Wednesday, the President expressed scant optimism that Congress would agree on new gun control legislation, even as a bipartisan group of senators meets to weigh options.

"I served in Congress for 36 years. I'm never confident, totally," Biden said when asked whether he believed lawmakers would agree on new gun laws.

"It depends. So I don't know," Biden said. "I've not been in the negotiations as they're going on right now."

The lukewarm response was an indication Biden is wary of associating too closely with the nascent efforts on Capitol Hill to arrive at a gun control compromise.

While Biden said Tuesday he would speak with lawmakers about guns, the White House later said he would only become involved when the time is right.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

The-CNN-Wire
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