Watch: Biden's 'ice cream' joke right before first statement on school shooting that killed 6

Joe Biden speaking at the Women's Business Summit in the White House.

US President Joe Biden is drawing flak for making a joke right before he made his first statement on the school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, that killed three young children and three staff.

"My name is Joe Biden. I’m Dr Jill Biden’s husband. And I eat Jeni’s ice cream, chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream. By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs. You think I’m kidding? I’m not," Biden said as he began his address at the Women's Business Summit in the White House.

The clip of Biden’s remarks has been widely shared, with the President’s ill-timed joke being seen as insensitive.

BREAKING: Outrage after President @JoeBiden said this at the start of his speech while children and adults were massacred in Nashville shooting, "My name is Joe Biden. I’m dr. Jill Biden’s husband. I like ice cream, chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate… pic.twitter.com/Wa7nFApjMu

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) March 27, 2023

In the same speech, Biden described the latest shooting as "sick" and said gun violence was "ripping the soul of this nation”.

"It's just sick," he said at the White House. The President praised police for responding "within minutes" but called on Congress to pass a ban on assault weapons often used in mass shootings.

"It's ripping our communities apart, ripping the soul of this nation, ripping at the very soul of the nation.”

A heavily armed former student killed three young children and three staff in what appeared to be a carefully planned attack at a private elementary school in Nashville on Monday, before being shot dead by police.

The police identified the attacker as a 28-year-old transgender person.

School shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, where the proliferation of firearms has soared in recent years.