Father of Parkland shooting victim who heckled Biden during gun-law speech says he had 'nothing to lose'
- Manuel Oliver interrupted Biden during a speech to call for more gun control.
- Oliver, whose son died in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, said he did it because he had "nothing to lose."
The man who interrupted President Joe Biden on Mondayto urge more action on gun control, who is the father of a Parkland school-shooting victim, said he did so because he had "nothing to lose."
Manuel Oliver's son, Joaquin, was among the 17 people killed who were killed in the 2018 shooting. He began shouting on Monday during Biden's White House speech, when the president was marking a new, bipartisan gun-control law.
"You have to do more than this! "You have to open an office in the White House!" Oliver shouted, the New York Post reported.
Biden responded: "Sit down. You'll hear what I have to say."
But the president encouraged Oliver to speak further as a security guard approached Oliver, saying: "Let him talk. Let him talk."
Oliver spoke about his interruption of the press conference with the gun-control advocacy group Guns Down America later on Monday.
He said that more work needed to be done even with the new gun legislation and discussed why he interrupted Biden.
"I am here. I thought that I needed to be here. But I also needed to say what I said inside that place. Some people say it was not the right moment. I think you can't wait for the right moment. You make the right moment."
Oliver noted that he has supported Biden, but feels he needs to do more: "I just told the president, who I know personally, who I voted for, who I campaigned for: 'President Biden, you can do more.'"
He also said it was good that Biden encouraged him to keep talking, saying: "The good thing about all this is that president Biden wanted me to keep on speaking."
He later added: "I have nothing to lose. I don't have a problem by saying the things the way that I say them. I think we all have a role to play here."
The bill that Biden signed in late June takes new steps, including expanding background checks for young people who try to buy guns and building on an existing ban on gun ownership for convicted domestic abusers, Insider's Jake Epstein and John Haltiwanger reported.
Biden noted when he signed the bill that there are more gun control steps he wants to take, and said during his Monday speech that the new law is "not enough."