White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged during a Tuesday press briefing that President Joe Biden doesn’t back a ban on the sale of all handguns.

“[The president] supports a ban on sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and expanded background checks to keep guns out of dangerous hands,” she said, per Fox News. “He does not support a ban on the sale of all handguns.”

Other countries have taken new steps to minimize gun violence. Earlier this week, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced a bill that would freeze handgun ownership in the country. “What this means is that it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” Trudeau said during a press conference.

“We recognize that the vast majority of gun owners use them safely and in accordance with the law, but other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives,” he continued.

Jean-Pierre, though, did confirm that Biden was weighing other executive actions on gun reform. “He wants to make sure there’s action,” she said. “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.”

On Monday, Biden again pushed for a blanket ban on assault weapons after visiting affected families of the Uvalde, Texas, shooting rampage last week that left nineteen children and two teachers dead. “It makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” the president told reporters outside the White House.

“The idea of these high-caliber weapons—there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of, about self-protection, hunting and I guess—and, remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute. You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn't go out and purchase a lot of weaponry,” he continued.

Biden also pointed to the federal assault rifle ban that expired in 2004 for helping to reduce gun-related deaths. “I know what happened when we had rational action before,” he said. “Not many are saying it anymore, but there was a while there where people were saying that, you know, the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots, and what we have to do is, we have to be able to take on the government when they're wrong. Well, to do that you need an F-15, you know? You need an Abrams tank.”

Last week, according to CNN, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) asked Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to begin conversations with Democrats regarding bipartisan gun-control legislation.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Finance and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.