Gun control: Biden meets with law enforcement officials

WASHINGTON (KABC) -- Vice President Joe Biden met with law enforcement officers from around the country on Thursday to discuss gun control.

Biden was joined by Attorney General Eric Holder, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

They began coming up with ways to tighten gun laws and curb violence. President Barack Obama is also pressing lawmakers to reinstate a ban on military-style assault weapons.

"The vast majority of law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say we should be able to keep an irresponsible, lawbreaking few from buying a weapon of war," said the president.

Biden helped author the 1994 crime bill that included an assault weapons ban. That is something that could once again be proposed following the Newtown, Conn., mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six adults dead.

The Biden-led task force will also explore ways to improve mental health resources and address ways to create a culture that doesn't promote violence.

Biden and his group of law enforcement officers are expected to give their recommendations to the president next month.

Investigators are still sorting out the past of 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the gunman in the Newtown school killings. But since he didn't buy the guns - his mother owned the firearms and kept them in the family's home - federal laws wouldn't have affected Lanza's access to them.

The National Rifle Association has said it would hold a news conference Friday, in it's first response to the shootings and the new calls for gun control.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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