The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, which left 20 children and six adults dead in December of 2012, featured prominently in the speech Obama delivered on Tuesday. The president was introduced by Mark Barden, whose seven-year-old son Daniel was killed in the shooting. Obama was emotional throughout the speech—shortly after beginning his remarks he paused repeatedly while discussing visiting then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the hospital after she was shot in 2011—but he began to cry while discussing the shooting. “Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad,” he said.
He added that these tragedies are hardly uncommon, and in fact are all too frequent in his hometown. “It happens on the streets of Chicago every day,” he said, wiping away tears.