Barack Obama spoke Thursday after meeting with the families of those killed in the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. He opened his remarks by attempting to identify the source of the violence.
“Our last two terrorist attacks [in Orlando and San Bernadino] were homegrown,” he said. “Carried out, it appears…by deranged individuals warped by the hate propaganda they’d seen over the internet. We’re going to have to do more to prevent these events from occurring.”
He called on lawmakers to tighten gun control and help “end the plague of violence that these weapons inflict on so many lives.”
Obama spoke while laying flowers at a memorial a mile-and-a-half from the nightclub. He described Orlando as a city “shaken by an evil, hateful act.”
President Obama went with Vice President Joe Biden to visit with the families of those killed during the attack.
“Our hearts are broken, too,” Obama said he told the relatives. “We stand with you.”
Almost two dozen people injured in during the attack were in the hospital, with six of them still in critical condition, Orlando officials told the Washington Post.
The rest were stable, save three more in “guarded” condition, according to Orlando Regional Medical Center. The hospital, which is the primary care center for those injured during the attack, said it performed 50 surgeries during the days since the attack, and that it had more scheduled for today.
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