Biden to deliver national address on Thursday as U.S. reels from mass shootings in Oklahoma, Texas and NY

President Biden will deliver a speech on guns on Thursday night, the White House said, responding to a wrenching spate of mass shootings that have shaken an anxious nation.

Biden was set to give the address at 7:30 p.m. from the Cross Hall of the White House, according to an afternoon update to his daily schedule.

The president faces intense pressure to spur Congress to crack down on guns, but he has stressed in recent days that his ability to move the needle is limited. On Monday, Biden bluntly said, “I can’t dictate this stuff.”

Still, he maintains the bully pulpit of the presidency, and the address from the White House could represent his most powerful call to action since an 18-year-old carried an assault rifle into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and shot 19 children dead last week.

That shooting came just 10 days after a spray of bullets fired by a racist shooter killed 10 in Buffalo. On Wednesday night, a shooter terrified Tulsa, Okla., killing four people at a medical building there.

The bloodshed and painful headlines have put Americans on edge. At the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, about 10 people were injured in a stampede last Sunday after a loud noise sparked fears of an active shooter, according to the NYPD.

[ House committee want to raise legal age limit to purchase assault after Texas, New York mass shotings ]

The Police Department said no shots were fired at the Barclays Center, which is located less than three miles from the site of the Sunset Park subway attack in April that left 10 people with gunshot wounds.

The White House said in the president’s daily schedule that he would speak on the “need for Congress to act to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is taking lives every day.”

A bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers has worked during recess this week to negotiate a compromise strengthening lenient federal gun laws. The details remained foggy on Thursday.

Democrats and some Republicans have attempted similar deals in the decade since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, only to come up empty time after time, rebuffed by the majority of the GOP.

It was not clear what areas Biden would emphasize in his address on Thursday night.

Efforts to expand background checks are widely popular. And Biden has urged in the past for a ban on assault weapons.

The U.S. banned the manufacture of some assault weapons and high-capacity magazines from 1994 to 2004, but a renewal now appears a long shot.