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Law Enforcement Officials Discuss Keeping Our Communities Safe

January 28, 2013 at 3:02 PM ET by Megan Slack

Summary:

President Obama and Vice President Biden continue the conversation about reducing gun violence in a meeting with law enforcement officials.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with law enforcement officials to discuss policies the President put forward last month that would reduce gun violence in communities across America, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Jan. 28, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Today, President Obama and Vice President Biden continued the conversation about reducing gun violence in a meeting with law enforcement officials.

No group is more important in helping make our communities safer, President Obama said, because they recognize that it’s not only the high-profile mass shootings that need to be addressed, but also the everyday gun violence that happens in cities and towns across the country.

That’s why part of the conversation that we're going to be having today relates not only to the issue of new laws or better enforcement of our gun laws, it also means what are we doing to make sure that we've got the strongest possible law enforcement teams on the ground? What are we doing to hire more cops? What are we doing to make sure that they're getting the training that they need? What are we doing to make sure our sheriff's offices in rural counties have access to some of the resources that some of the big cities do in order to deal with some of these emergencies?

Two weeks ago, President Obama issued 23 executive actions to help reduce gun violence, and called on Congress to pass laws that will help keep guns out of the wrong hands, ban assault and high-capacity magazines, make our schools safer, and increase access to mental health services. Read more about the plan here.