Obama to hold moment of silence for Conn. victims

President Obama speaks at a memorial service for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 16, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. / MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Updated 3:45 a.m. EST

WASHINGTON President Obama plans to observe a moment of silence at the White House on Friday morning in honor of the victims of the Connecticut elementary school massacre.

The White House says the president will observe the moment of silence at 9:30 a.m. EST, about one week after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults were killed at the school.

• Complete coverage: Elementary School Rampage

Mr. Obama has asked Vice President Biden to produce recommendations on new gun laws by next month and pledged to push new legislation without delay.

The White House said the president's observance of the shootings would take place in private, without press coverage.

Conn. Gov. Dan Malloy has asked people across the state to observe a moment of silence at 9:30 a.m. Friday.

Places of worship and buildings with bells have been asked to ring them 26 times, for the victims at the school.

Officials and clergy in many other states have said they will also participate. Among them: New York City and state, Florida, Michigan, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Indiana, and Utah.

[gracescalia]

Oh really? Will he have a "moment of silence" too for all the little BLACK kids that have been killed in Chicago, Detroit, L.A., etc.-- URBAN area deaths that OUT-NUMBER those in this massacre during the time of this sensational media coverage?

[vortex3600]

Those were innocent kids and adults, not common street thugs. Go play the race card somewhere else loser.

[JV1970]

Apparently gracescalia didn't hear the president's news conference speech last Friday following the shooting in Newtown. He did indeed include the children who are killed in Chicago.

I think gracescalia is also forgetting the fact that Obama lived in Chicago from the time he finished college until he was elected president. She is also forgetting that although Obama was raised by his white mother and his white grandparents, he is half black. His father was a black man from Ethiopia.

She is also forgetting that the president's wife, Michelle Obama, is black and both of her parents were black.

There is absolutely no reason why gracescalia should think that Obama wouldn't include his own people who've been killed as a result of gun violence in his moment of silence. The teachers and children in Connecticut are just being the only ones mentioned at this time because their killings were so recent and there was so many of them all at once. 26 people were massacred within just a few minutes.

[closethippy1]

A good example of how the US became awashed with high power weapons is the Beretta handgun used by most of the police in the US. Before the police adopted the Beretta as their gun of choice they used to have the 6 bullet revolver but the Beretta compnay wanted to change that. So what they did was to offer their guns to the US military at the lowest price and the military bought a whole bunch of Beretta guns.
The Beretta company then used this as a selling point to the police, telling them how even the military sees the value of their guns, and the police bought into it.
The Beretta company then went after the average Joe to sell their guns. And so there you have it: From the US military to US Main street where sooner than later everyone, including criminals and gangs, began buying and using a gun that can fire 15 to 30 rounds in seconds.
The most pathetic aspect of all this is how the NRA freaks will argue that they need to be armed with more sophisticated weapons than the Beretta to defend themselves instead of seeing how they're being played like a bunch of fools by the weapons industry.

[1notrub11]

"The White House said the president's observance of the shootings would take place in private without press coverage."

I can see why. There is no longer any need, now.