“I hope and pray that I don’t have to come out again during my tenure as President to offer my condolences to families in these circumstances. But based on my experience as President, I can’t guarantee that. And that’s terrible to say. And it can change.”
President Barack Obama took his usual place at the White House podium last night to address the tragic shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Yesterday (10/1), 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer opened fire on the campus, killing at least ten and injuring at least 20 others. “…America will wrap everyone who’s grieving with out prayers and our love. But, as I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough,” he stated, visibly angry. “It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America, next week or a couple of months from now.”
Obama says mass shootings like this are the result of “a sickness in their minds,” and sadly, have become frighteningly routine. “The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it…We’ve become numb to this.” After rattling off a list of some of the deadliest mass shootings in America to date, he added it “cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.” “There is a gun for roughly every man, woman and child in America,” said the President. “So how can you, with a straight face, make the argument that more guns will make us safer?”
Listen above as President Barack Obama speaks on America’s gun laws, and find out what he wants you to do to “get the government to change these laws and to save lives – and to let young people grow up.”
