Gun Control Meeting in Washington

CREATED Jan. 11, 2013

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  • CNN - A federal task force looking for ways to curb gun violence will have a set of recommendations by Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday. Speaking during a week of meetings with disparate groups on various sides of the issue -- in Video by kmir6.com

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WASHINGTON - (CNN) -- A federal task force looking for ways to curb gun violence will have a set of recommendations by Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday. Speaking during a week of meetings with disparate groups on various sides of the issue -- including some for and others against stricter gun controls -- Biden, who oversees the task force, said the recommendations to be given to President Barack Obama will serve as a beginning. "This doesn't mean it is the end of the discussion, but the public wants us to act," he told reporters. A look at U.S. gun laws Obama called for the task force after last month's massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 27 people were killed -- 20 of them elementary school children. Biden said he's been surprised by how many groups have encouraged universal background checks for all gun owners, including those who purchase through private sales. The National Rifle Association said it was "disappointed" with a White House task force meeting Thursday, saying it expected mental health, the "marketing of violence to our kids" and school safety to be top topics. "We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment," the group said in a statement. "While claiming that no policy proposals would be prejudged, this task force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners -- honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans." The group indicated it will now concentrate its efforts through members of Congress. NRA President David Keene told CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" that little common ground was found. An exception was a possible agreement to place "potentially violent" mentally ill people on a national database of those not allowed to buy firearms, Keene said. Share your recommendations on Twitter Biden called it a complicated issue, emphasizing that there is "no singular solution to how we deal with" mass shootings. Many stakeholders in the issue have met with members of the task force, Biden said, including medical and religious groups, educators and parents. Concerns about mental health may be "one of the most important things that we've been focusing on," he said. Biden also noted that many firearm deaths in the United States are suicides. Referring to one of the most contentious issues -- whether to reinstate an assault weapons ban -- Biden said he has never heard so much support for "the need to do something about high-capacity magazines." Former Marines share dramatically different stances on gun violence The task force also was meeting with members of the entertainment industry to discuss violence in movies and TV shows. Obama has spoken out about a culture that often "glorifies guns and violence." Dan Glickman, a former congressman and onetime head of the Motion Picture Association of America, rejects suggestions of links between films and real-life violence. "I don't think the abundance of movies that are put out by the entertainment industry are that violent or cause violence," he told CNN on Thursday.