Without mentioning Gov. Bobby Jindal by name, President Barack Obama responded Friday (June 19) to Jindal’s criticism that he was trying to “score cheap political points” by advocating for gun control immediately after the mass killings in South Carolina.
“I refuse to act as if this is the new normal or to pretend that it is simply sufficient to grieve and that any new mention of us doing something to stop it is somehow politicizing the problem,” the president said to applause as he spoke Friday to a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in San Francisco.
“We need a change in attitudes among everybody — lawful gun owners, those who are unfamiliar with guns. We have to have a conversation about it and fix this. And ultimately, Congress acts when the public insists on action.”
It was the president’s second comments in the aftermath of Wednesday night’s killing of nine people at a bible study at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., allegedly by a white gunman intent on starting a race war. It was Obama’s remarks Thursday, less than 24 hours after the deadly attack on the black church, that drew the ire of Jindal and some conservative commentators. Jindal, who is expected to announce his presidential candidacy next week, delivered his criticism of the president’s comments during a Fox News interview.
The president said it’s impossible to know what the impact would have been if Congress had acted, as he and others requested, to eliminate a loophole that allows people to purchase guns at gun shows from unlicensed gun dealers after the 2012 killing of 20 first graders and six educators at a Connecticut elementary school.
“We do not know it would have prevented what happened in Charleston – no reform can guarantee a limitation of violence,” Obama said. “But we might have some more Americans with us. We might have stopped one shooter — some families might still be whole. We all might have to attend fewer funerals and we should be strong enough to acknowledge this.”
“At the very least, we should be able to talk about this issue as citizens, without demonizing all gun owners, who are overwhelmingly law-abiding, but also without suggesting that any debate about this involves a wild-eyed plot to take everybody’s guns away.”
The president said reporters interpreted his remarks Thursday that he’s resigned that Congress won’t act on gun control. That may be true right now, Obama said, but he’s not resigned that public opinion can prod Congress to act.
“I want to be clear. I am not resigned. I have faith we will eventually do the right thing,” the president said.
“It is not good enough simply to show sympathy. You don’t see murder on this kind of scale with this kind of frequency on any other advanced nation on earth. Every country has violence, hateful, or mentally unstable people.” What is different, he said, is that “not every country is awash in easily accessible guns.”
SOURCE: Bruce Alpert
NOLA.com | Times-Picayune
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