WASHINGTON, July 5, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - US President Joe Biden sought to strike
an optimistic note of unity in an Independence Day speech on Monday
overshadowed by a mass shooting at a holiday parade in a Chicago suburb.

Addressing a July 4 barbeque for military families at the White House, Biden
said he was confident America could pull through what he acknowledged were
"unsettling" times.

"The economy is growing, but not without pain. Liberty is under assault,
assault both here and abroad," Biden said.

"In recent days, there has been reason to think that this country is moving
backward, that freedom has been reduced, that rights we assumed were
protected are no longer."

Biden was referring to a rapid succession of Supreme Court rulings that
overturned the 50-year-old federal right to abortion, expanded gun rights for
people wishing to bear them in public, and limited the government's ability
to fight climate change.

"I know it can be exhausting and unsettling, but tonight, I want you to know
that we're going to get through all of this," he added.

In his speech, Biden made only a passing reference to the morning shooting in
Highland Park, Illinois, in which a gunman killed six people and injured two
dozen more by firing on a parade with a high-powered rifle.

In an earlier statement, he had condemned the "senseless" act of violence and
vowed to keep fighting what he called the epidemic of gun violence in
America.

The country has seen at least 309 mass shooting so far this, according to the
Gun Violence Archive, an advocacy group.