Posted on 10/01/2015 5:36:17 PM PDT by Kaslin
Around 6:20 p.m., President Obama gave remarks to the press on today’s horrific shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. He said there are more American families “whose lives have been changed forever,” and another community stunned with grief. He then went on to say that he’s been to Roseburg, where there are “really good people there.” He went on to thank the first responders, and that in the coming days, we’ll learn about the victims and their dreams they had for their respective futures.
A visibly angry and frustrated president declared, “our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough.” It does not capture the heartache or the anger we fell over these senseless acts of violence. And it does not prevent this carnage from happening in the future. The president added that we don’t know the motive of the shooter, but it’s fair to say that they have a “sickness in their minds.”
Watch P_resident 0bama address Oregon shooting
Yet, he cited that we’re not the only country with mental illness, but we are the only developed nation in the world where we have a mass shooting every few months.
“We’ve become numb to this,” Obama said.
He railed against what he feels are lax gun laws, saying that it cannot be this easy for someone who wants to inflict harm on other people to obtain firearms. The president also said that while we have become numb to these events, the reactions could also be anticipated. He challenged the logic of pro-Second Amendment groups by asking them if they truly believe that more guns makes us safer, adding that the press releases from these groups are already being distributed as he speaks.
The president did acknowledge that there are scores of responsible gun owners in this country who don’t believe that’s true. Polling shows that Americans, including gun owners; want to change the gun laws. Obama also said that states with the most gun laws have the fewer gun deaths.
He went on to say that we know nations that have had one mass shooting, and ended up crafting laws that have eliminated such horrific events; Obama used the United Kingdom and Australia as examples, calling them “countries like ours.”
Obama acknowledged that some in the media will say he shouldn’t politicize this tragedy, but added that gun control is “is something we should politicize.” He then made a plea to new organizations to compare the deaths of Americans from gun violence to that of terrorism in the coming days.
Congress was also the subject of Obama’s frustration saying that the current session explicitly blocks the collection of data that could lead to information that prevents more gun deaths. He also blamed the general public saying, “This is a political choice that we make. To allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.”
Towards the end of the president’s remarks, he said when natural disasters strike, we work to make communities safer; we have seatbelt laws because we know they prevent automobile fatalities; and we fix roads to also prevent road deaths and make transportation easier. He was getting to the common sense element with these actions, but added that the notion that gun violence is somehow different–that out freedom and our Constitution prevents us from enacting laws that enhance gun safety–doesn’t make sense.
Obama admitted that this issue would require a change of politics, and that Americans who think gun violence is an epidemic should be thinking how to change the politics in Washington on this issue.
He made a call to gun owners to think about whether their opinions and views are being properly represented by the organizations who claim to speak for them on the national stage. Obama did not mention the National Rifle Association, but we all knew what he meant by this statement.
Before leaving, he said that he couldn’t do this on his own. He will need a cooperative Congress, governors, and state legislatures who are willing to work with him. He prayed–and hoped–that he wouldn’t have to come out here to express his condolences to the families of the victims of mass shootings–and give the same call to arms for more gun control–again during his presidency. But Obama admitted he couldn’t guarantee that.
Updates to follow with the president’s full remarks soon
At the end of Bill O’Reilly’s The Factor he announced the name of the killer which he had just gotten prior His name was Chris Harper Mercer and he was 26 year old, not 20
Come and take it Obama you ______!
95% white.
Political enough, 0butthole?
Um......No.
This traitorous muslim POS can shove it whee the sun don’t shine....sideways. But he’d probably like that.
All the time he talked he was smiling.
Yes BO taking his embarrassment that Putin caused him out on gun owners. He is such a child. Why doesn’t he address this killer taking out Christians. Take the guns away from the Christian haters BO. A gun doesn’t walk onto a campus and pull it’s own trigger. There is a brain connected to it that tells it what to do.
No one with half a brain really wants you around pretending to give a damn, Bambi.
Bees kill many with their stings each year.
Ban bees.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned anywhere but Roseburg, OR is the town where Umpqua Community College is located. This is also the home town of Alek Skarlatos; he is one of the men who foiled the Paris train terrorist attack a few months back.
Coincidence?
Run a DNA comparison!
Republicans are already planning how they can fully fund his gun grabbing while saving face back home.
Hmmm. That is interesting.
As usual, its all about Barry.
Yeah - let’s see how much you want to politicize it when it’s finally confirmed that the shooter was targeting Christians, had contacts with Muslim radicals, and was among other things looking for a quick and easy way to fame.....
60 plus people were shot in Chicago this last weekend alone. Did our Asshat president say anything about that on Monday morning ?
I was screaming at the car radio when he was croc tearing about this shooting. Every bleeping weekend his ballerina ball boy oversees more shootings than this one. Not one word.
What, you mean taking the Confederate flag down didn’t stop these shootings?
Knock me over with a feather.
SONS of Obama at work?
It cannot be a coincidence. Skarlatos’s school. That is too weird. Also supposedly the shooter is from Torrance, CA? Was he going to school in OR?
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