”It’s time to go on offense and bring the promise of America to all Americans,” he told a gathering of about 20 people Saturday afternoon at Amigo’s, 280 N. First St.

A prosecutor from the San Francisco Bay area who was elected to Congress seven years ago at age 31, Swalwell said he has ”generational optimism” combined with knowledge he gained through service on the House Intelligence Committee that would enable him to be the nation’s chief executive.

Following his speech, Swalwell said he decided to run for president because of his impatience with the gridlock in Washington, D.C.

He said he was born in Sac City and lived for awhile in Algona, where his father, also named Eric Swalwell, was the police chief. He said in 1986, the family moved from Algona to the west coast, living in Oregon and California.

Sickened by mass shootings dating back to the Dec. 14, 2012, attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, Swalwell said gun violence will be the first thing he will address if he’s elected president.

”I promise that I will make that issue my top priority,” he said. ”It’s an issue that has never had a champion. It’s one where we always respond after the last shooting. We always play catch up on it.”

He said he’s tired of ”this ritual of loss, grief, shock, anger and then thoughts and prayers as an alibi, a cruel alibi, for doing nothing.”

The candidate said he will seek a ban on assault rifles and a buyback of existing ones because ”some weapons just belong on battlefields, never in our communities.”

Swalwell said he will also push for background checks on all gun sales.

He said as president, he would also invest in mental health programs, especially those that would train teachers and students to recognize symptoms of distress in others and perhaps be able to intervene before a crisis begins.

Improving health care for Americans is also a priority, he said.

He recalled traveling across Iowa with Democratic congressional candidate J.D. Scholten, of Sioux City, and seeing containers on the counters of convenience stores where customers could place donations for sick people.

He said a person’s health care plan should not rely on ”the charity of a stranger where they buy gas.”

The candidate summed up his concept of a health care plan as: ”If you’re sick, you’re seen. If you’re seen, you don’t go broke.”

Swalwell said he would open Medicare, the federal government’s health insurance program for the elderly, to anyone who wants it.

But he added that as president, he would increase funding for medical research to find cures for more diseases.