The White HouseOur nation has suffered too much at the hands of dangerous people who use guns to commit horrific acts of violence. As President Obama said following the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, “We won’t be able to stop every violent act, but if there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try.”
Most gun owners are responsible and law-abiding, and they use their guns safely. The President strongly believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. But to better protect our children and our communities from tragic mass shootings like those in Newtown, Aurora, Oak Creek, and Tucson, there are common-sense steps we can take right now.
While no law or set of laws will end gun violence, it is clear that the American people want action. If even one child’s life can be saved, then we need to act. Now is the time to do the right thing for our children, our communities, and the country we love.
Why Now
Gunfire was probably the last thing U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her constituents expected to hear during their Saturday morning town hall meeting in a Tucson grocery store parking lot. But by the time the last shot rang out on January 8, 2011, six lay dead or dying and thirteen more were injured. Rep. Giffords, the gunman’s target, was shot in the head. She survived, but faced a long and difficult journey to recovery. Among those who lost their lives were a nine-year-old girl, a federal judge, and one of Giffords’ staffers.
Four days later, President Obama spoke at a memorial service for the Tucson shooting victims, urging Americans to engage in a national conversation about the causes of this type of tragedy.
“We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future.”
Just after midnight on July 20, 2012, a man walked into a packed movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and opened fire. He killed twelve people and wounded another 58.
Days after the shooting there, President Obama traveled to Aurora to speak with survivors and meet with family members and loved ones of each of the victims. He heard from local leaders about the community’s resilience in the face of such shocking violence – violence that reminded the nation it could have been any of us in that theater, or any of us mourning the loss of a friend or family member.
President Obama also reminded us that even in the darkest of days, the extraordinary courage and strength of the American people shines through. He told the remarkable story of two young women he met who survived the shooting. After Allie was shot in the neck, her best friend Stephanie stayed beside her and kept pressure on the wound, even as bullets whizzed overhead. When they stopped, Stephanie helped carry Allie outside to the safety of a waiting ambulance, two parking lots away.
But just a few weeks later, another American community faced the unimaginable grief that cities like Tucson and Aurora knew too well. In Oak Creek, Wisconsin, a shooting in a Sikh temple left six people dead and four more wounded.
Despite witnessing these tragedies again and again and again, nothing could have steeled the nation for what would happen in Newtown, Connecticut.
On December 14, 2012, the day had just begun at Sandy Hook Elementary when a man broke into the school and started shooting. Within minutes, twenty of Sandy Hook’s first graders – 6 and 7 year olds – were killed in their classrooms. The school’s principal and psychologist were among the six staff members who died trying to protect the children in their care.
That afternoon, the President spoke emotionally about the day’s events from the White House. At a prayer vigil in Newtown two days later, President Obama said we couldn’t tolerate this kind of tragedy anymore. The time had come to take meaningful action to reduce gun violence in America.
Working Together
Five days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, President Obama announced that Vice President Biden would lead an effort to develop a set of concrete policy proposals for reducing gun violence, due no later than January.
“This is not some Washington commission. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task, to pull together real reforms right now.”
Keeping with President Obama’s commitment to engage the American people in the process, the Vice President solicited input from citizens and organizations with a wide range of concerns, perspectives, and opinions while preparing his recommendations. From victims’ advocates to educators, elected leaders to sports and wildlife conservationists, he spoke with many groups about their ideas on curbing gun violence in the United States.
In addition to the Vice President’s meetings and discussions here in Washington, people from around the country joined the conversation about preventing gun violence by signing We the People petitions on the White House web site. As part of the official response to those petitions, President Obama recorded a special message for the more than 350,000 people who signed them, explaining that his efforts would only be successful with the continued help of Americans who stand up and speak out.
To keep the conversation going, Bruce Reed, the Vice President’s chief of staff, invited petition signers to join him on a conference call about the ongoing work at the White House. As domestic policy advisor in the Clinton White House, Reed worked closely with then-Senator Joe Biden to pass the 1994 Crime Bill that helped law enforcement bring down the rate of violent crime in America, and is deeply involved in developing the latest set of proposals.
The President’s Plan to Reduce Gun Violence
On January 15, 2013, Vice President Biden delivered his policy proposals to President Obama. On January 16, 2013, the President put forward a specific plan to protect our children and communities by reducing gun violence. The plan combines executive actions and calls for legislative action that would help keep guns out of the wrong hands, ban assault and high-capacity magazines, make our schools safer, and increase access to mental health services.
- Require background checks for all gun sales
- Strengthen the background check system for gun sales
- Pass a new, stronger ban on assault weapons
- Limit ammunition magazines to 10 rounds
- Finish the job of getting armor-piercing bullets off the streets
- Give law enforcement additional tools to prevent and prosecute gun crime
- End the freeze on gun violence research
- Make our schools safer with new resource officers and counselors, better emergency response plans, and more nurturing school climates
- Ensure quality coverage of mental health treatment, particularly for young people
I’m guessing you’ll never hear this:
“White House: Now is the time to do something about the border crisis”
That is what he was referring to with that statement, no?
It’s kind of strange, ironic, and perhaps illustrative, that these “gun tragedies” are happening increasingly more often on Obama’s watch, don’t you think?
Newtown? you mean Sandy Hoax
Yeah & the only victim is liberty in the USA.
Start by stop killing with drones
Gaggie Giffords, Aurora, Sandy Hoax, and the Boston Bombings all had spooks involved with evidence of their complicity in all these “staged events with one purpose in mind. To further the gun confiscation agenda of the elites who can’t take over the world until they do something about the free men of this country who are willing to die fighting this tyranny! This ebola scare will be in full bloom when they show the first person on American soil start bleeding from the eyes. That should be coming soon, just finishing up makeup and rehearsal, distributing scripts to all the “crisis actors”, and lining up the storm troopers with automatic weapons to enforce Martial Law after the show.
“This ebola scare will be in full bloom when they show the first person on American soil start bleeding from the eyes. That should be coming soon, just finishing up makeup and rehearsal, distributing scripts to all the “crisis actors”, and lining up the storm troopers with automatic weapons to enforce Martial Law after the show.”
Hahaha! I know. Ain’t that the truth, Millard. The insanity of it all.
Hey NC, it’s so damned easy to see right through their motives that it is very difficult to take anything you see or hear on the MSM without a pound of salt and a stick to shove it down with! Their hand has been “tipped”. Even now, the MSM is beginning to question our relationship with the Zionists as they are blatantly committing war crimes for all to see. Now, Sovereign American Nationals top the “Terror Watch List” and rightly so. When free men take up arms in a common cause, you better either join them or get the hell out the way and report to the FEMA camp to hand in your guns and walk over to the edge of the ditch, they will attend to you forthcoming! In the meantime, we’ll be arresting all federal government employees and the “Treason Trials” will commence. Yes folks, the sharks off the east and west coast will be well fed with “Traitor meat”! Of course, they all will hang until they stop dancing.
It is immoral to deprive a man of the means to defend himself.
Same old line as when Bill Klinton was spewing bs… If just one child can be saved/…blah blah blah… If you are so concerned…arm the Teachers and strike all the silly gun laws on the books now… BUT, you will not do that, because the children are not the reason… The children are being used to disarm.
It’s been proven time and time again study after study that guns in the hands of citizens reduces all violent crime. These reforms are a cover then for another motive. What could that other motive be? It sure isn’t compassion for American lives, as witnessed by the now completely open borders.
boiling frog
go slowly and nobody will notice…mmm, I don’t think so
I know they eventually want all the guns gone but have guns become the new election year “gay marriage, abortion”?
They know everytime they push it just causes people to buy more guns and ammo… Are they doing this to disrupt what little stability we are getting back in the market?
Am I over thinking this and this is just them making another push for gun restrictions?
“If we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don’t kill we will cease to exist.” — Israeli Prof. Arnon Sofer of Haifa University, Jerusalem Post
What an oath to live by, huh?
OK, I’m just throwing this “out there” for peer review. If, let’s say, we call a National 2nd Amendment march upon Washington D.C. on All Hallows Eve this year with the advertised intent of presenting Treason Charges on them all, do you think they would fire upon Americans exercising there Constitutional rights? That, I would think, would be followed by all hell breaking loose and the elites don’t want that. We have to do something to get the ball rolling or it will soon be too late to do anything about it. Just thinking out loud. Don’t worry about it, we’ve all been promoted to #1 on the terror watch list! Be proud brothers and sisters.
While I agree, I’m just thinking that our treasonous government would be insane enough to shoot missiles or nuke the entire area filled with people like they are doing in Israel with Gaza and then calling us extremists and terrorists on the MSM. That’s what I would be worried about.
NC, do you really think they would do that to, let’s say a million man march? I would hope there would be many more than that as the jobs keep disappearing along with our rights. But to fire on Americans, as General Yamamoto said following Pearl Harbor, “I think we have awakened a Sleeping Giant.” Don’t think for 1 minute that they don’t know they are playing with fire and, if all hell breaks loose, they know who we’re coming for. Bankers and their “bought off” buddies in the House and Senate. Yes douchebags, make sure you close that flimsy gate on your “silver spoon-fed neighborhood.” Paybacks can be a bitch!
“While no law or set of laws will end gun violence,…
STOP right there…
NO law or SET OF LAWS is/are valid. ANY and ALL gun laws are in DIRECT violation of the 2nd amendment.
“SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED”!!!
PERIOD!!!
We need to outlaw automobiles, not guns. Over a million people die from cars a year, but only 28,736 people die from guns each year, 16,603 are suicides, 11,250 are homicides, 661 are accident, 222 are unknown intents. We should really outlaw government because they kill many more than both combined. Government Killed Over 260 Million in the 20th Century, and is Poised to Kill Billions More in the 21st Century. If they are so worried about deaths, get rid of themselves.
Around the globe it is estimated that 1.2 million people die in car accidents in one year – that equates to 3200 traffic deaths every day. This figure equals or surpasses some of the more high profile – and newsworthy – events that resulted in large death tolls. As Trevor Reichman at Treehugger points out in some of the following examples
1) Every day more people are killed in auto related deaths than in the 9/11 attacks on America.
2) Every day, about 3 times more woman, children, and men are killed in auto related deaths than in the recent Gaza conflict.
3) Every day, more than twice as many people perish in auto deaths than in Hurricane Katrina.
4) The daily toll from traffic accidents is equivalent to 15 plane crashes, each with 200 passengers aboard.
Works cited
http://www.inquisitr.com/16429/crash-boom-3000-people-die-in-car-accidents-daily/#GIFYbt0lK6sRqRHh.99
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_die_from_guns_each_year
http://www.shtfplan.com/alex-jones/democide-government-killed-over-260-million-in-the-20th-century-poised-to-kill-billions-more-in-the-21st_03162012
You want to talk common sense steps? Let’s talk sensibly about the federal reserve, the border the enormous amount of cash we give to the only terrorist state in the world israhell. Those kids lives in Palestine mean just as much as our kids. Let’s about the sham war drugs and terror. The pedophile rings run by jews. Our naught off government and corruption. Leave our last given right to defend ourselves from you out of it. Much bigger fish to fry Barry.
Of course the government will still arm the drug cartels, and always arm Israel. You never know when some young Palestinian children will be armed on an open field with soccer balls of mass destruction. We will be disarmed, and know how the Palestinians feel, as we are picked off one by one, losing our rights little by little, until all we have left is a Gazan ghetto, hucking pepped up bottle rockets, hoping to live another day; while the rest of the world cheers and blames us for our own downfall.