"It is heart-wrenching what we're experiencing. This is an epidemic, the gun violence that we're seeing across the country, and we have to do something, and we have to continue to make efforts to act to protect our kids, to protect people going to the grocery store," said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierr.

"The president has made this one of his priorities from the first day that he walked into this administration. And now, he's calling on Congress to act."

"So, he's hopeful. He wants to make sure there's action… Look, the president has done everything that he can from the federal government. We are looking at other executive actions that we can possibly do. This president has done more executive actions at this point than any other president, but it's not up to him alone."