Obama makes passionate plea over gun control
US President Barack Obama has made a passionate plea to have America’s gun control laws changed.
The President was speaking in the wake of the mass shooting at Oregon's Umpqua Community College, where 10 people were killed and seven injured.
It’s the 994th mass gun attack in the US in three years.
"Our thoughts and prayers are not enough," he said. "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 some place else in America next week, or a couple of months from now."
He said something can and must be done about it.
“This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America,” he said.
“The notion that gun violence is somehow different, that our freedom and our Constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners all across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do everything they do under such regulations doesn’t make sense.”
Obama said it’s not something he can change by himself.
“I've got to have a Congress and I've got to have state legislatures and governors who are willing to work with me on this.”
He pleaded for the American people to think about how they can get the Government to change the laws and save lives.
“It will require that the American people, individually, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, when you decide to vote for somebody, are making a determination as to whether this cause of continuing death for innocent people should be a relevant factor in your decision.
“If you think this is a problem, then you should expect your elected officials to reflect your views.”
In his statement, the President noted that the response from pro-gun lobbyists will be the same after the latest killing about the need for more guns and fewer safety laws.
“Polling…says the majority of Americans understand we should be changing these laws - including the majority of responsible, law-abiding gun owners,” he said.
“We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence.”
He also pre-empted critics who might claim he’s politicising the issue.
“This is something we should politicise. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.”
Obama’s appeal is not new. Early in 2015 he said that the US “is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws, even in the face of repeated mass killings”.
The same day a mass shooting took place in a movie theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana.