WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joseph Biden will deliver his recommendations for comprehensive gun violence legislation on Tuesday.

"There is really a very tight window to do this," he told the press corps during his announcement Thursday.

The recommendations are expected to address a number of angles and topics on gun policy, ranging from the availability of certain firearms and ammunition to data collection between federal and state law enforcement agencies. Biden announced that a top priority would be to create a more thorough system of background checks to prevent those with criminal histories or mental illness from purchasing weapons.

"So far," he said, there has been "a surprising recurrence of suggestions that we have universal background checks. Not just closing the gun show loophole, but have total universal background checks including in private sales."

Biden's recommendations won't immediately be turned into a legislative proposal. It will be up to President Barack Obama to decide how and when to act. But they will represent the first major step in a delicate legislative process to respond to a series of mass shootings, most recently the killing of 20 elementary-school students in Newtown, Conn.

For advocates of a strong legislative response, Thursday's comments offered reason for hope. The vice president suggested that both he and others with whom he has consulted were looking to tackle the issue of high-capacity magazines, which have been a feature in many of the most recent high-profile shootings.

"I have never quite heard as much talk about the need to do something about high capacity magazines as I've heard spontaneously from every group we have met with so far," Biden said. An attendee at one of the vice president's sessions, meanwhile, said that he was leaning towards recommending some form of regulation of assault weapons as well.