A local voice has been added to the national conversation on gun violence.

Story County Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald, along with other officials, met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the White House this week to continue the dialogue on gun violence.

According to the White House web page, Obama spoke before the meeting began in the Roosevelt Room on Monday.

“This is a representative group. It comes from a wide cross-section of communities across the country,” Obama said of the officials present at the meeting.

Fitzgerald commented the group met for a little over an hour.

The meeting included 13 law enforcement representatives, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in addition to the president and vice president, according to the Associated Press.

Several of the law enforcement representatives were from areas in which mass shootings had occurred within the past year, including Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo. and Oak Creek, Wis.

“It was an excellent dialogue among law enforcement leaders throughout the country,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald, who is currently still in D.C., was invited to participate because he has worked on legislative issues on the national level as a member of the National Sheriffs’ Association.

His emphasis throughout his stay in D.C. has been on mental health. He pointed out that in a lot of places, county jails are the largest mental health facilities.

“We’re looking at a wide variety of violence across America. The core component that we must deal with is … mental illness. That’s how we as a society can more appropriately address these concerns,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald, alongside Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey of Philadelphia Police and Police Chief John Edwards of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, made an appearance on CNN with Piers Morgan later on Monday in which Fitzgerald reiterated his point on mental health.

It is clear, however, that mental health is not the only topic being addressed as the discussion on gun violence continues.

“It went beyond just the narrow topic of assault weapons, into the broader topic of gun violence in general. We talked about the magazine capacities, we talked about universal background checks … [Obama and Biden] they’re very, very serious about this,” Ramsey said on CNN about the meeting.

Fitzgerald will return home on Sunday.