President Obama reacted to the mass shooting in Obama San Bernardino, CA by calling on the nation to come together to change the law at every level of government and take steps to make the American people safer.
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The President said:
We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world, and there are some steps we could take not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as frequently. Common sense gun safety laws, stronger background checks, and you know, for those who are concerned about terrorism, some may be aware of the fact that we have a no-fly list where people can’t get on planes, but those same people who we don’t allow to fly could go into a store right now in the United States and buy a firearm, and there’s nothing that we can do to stop them. That’s a law that needs to be changed.
My hope is that we’re able to contain this particular shooting. We don’t know yet what the motives of the shooters are, but what we do know is that there are steps we can take to make America safer, and we should come together on a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal.
We should never think that this is something that just happens in the ordinary course of events because it doesn’t happen with the same frequency in other countries.
President Obama was correct. We can’t allow ourselves to lulled into believing that routine mass shooting deaths of innocent Americans are normal. There is nothing normal about the mass shooting that are growing more routine in the United States.
Obama was also correct that some laws must change. There are common sense steps that can be taken to reduce both the frequency and the severity of mass shootings. The only thing stopping the country from saving lives is Republican politics.
We can’t prevent all mass shootings, but as a country we take steps to make them much more difficult to carry out. The United States has become a paradise for mass shooters, and it is time for people on the left, right, and middle to come together to put an end a climate that enables mass murderers.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
