DANBURY, Conn. — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took the Obama administration’s push for stricter gun laws to Connecticut on Thursday, delivering a forceful and often emotional appeal for stronger measures about 10 miles from the elementary school where a gunman killed 26 children and staff members on Dec. 14.

Mr. Biden said that however politically fraught the topic was, being silent in the face of gun violence was no longer possible given the massacre in Newtown and the nation’s daily plague of fatal shootings.

“We have to speak for those 20 beautiful children who died 69 days ago,” Mr. Biden said, noting as well the six staff members who tried to save them and the 1,900 people who have died nationally in shooting episodes since then. He added, “There is a moral price to be paid for inaction.”

Mr. Biden was joined by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut, who used the forum to propose tough new gun legislation designed to close loopholes and ban the type of weapon used at Sandy Hook Elementary School.