Staff Reports
Vice President Joe Biden, the man President Barack Obama tapped to come up with the federal government's response to the Dec. 14 school shooting in Newtown, is the keynote speaker at a conference in Danbury Thursday.
The Hartford Courant/Fox 61 is streaming live now as Sen. Richard Blumenthal speaks. Blumenthal's website offers a link to CT-N Connecticut Network's live coverage of Biden's speech.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra, state police Capt. Dale Hourigan, the mayors of Bridgeport and Hartford, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the parents of a girl killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, 7-year-old Grace McDonnell, are participating in the conference at Western Connecticut State University.
It focuses on the federal government response to reducing gun violence. Danbury is just a few miles from Newtown, where 20 first graders and six educators were gunned down at Sandy Hook School on Dec. 14, 2012.
Connecticut's two newly elected U.S. Sens., Democrats Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, and Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty, also a Democrat, are hosting the conference. It is not open to the public, only those who have been invited, according to a release announcing the Vice President's visit.
The conference will include panel discussions on ways to reduce gun violence, protect kids, and make communities safer, and will include national, state, and local leaders, law enforcement, mental health experts, sportsmen, faith leaders, families and survivors of gun violence, the release states. It takes place from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 21.
Federal Action in the Works
In the two months since the shooting in Newtown, President Obama has called on Congress to reinstitute a ban on assault rifles, limit the number of bullets in a clip, and establish a national database for mandatory universal background checks to purchase a firearm, among other proposals aimed at curbing gun violence.
'Special Visit' for Danbury
On his Twitter account, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton alluded to Biden's visit a few days ago, before anything had been announced publicly, tweeting:
"Danbury will be getting a special visit next week..."
The vice president's visit is actually the second highly famous person to come to Danbury in the past year. His Holiness the Dalai Lama came in October of 2012 and delivered a series of speeches at WCSU.
