On Thursday afternoon, President Obama held a press conference to address the mass shootings that took place on the Umpqua Community College campus in Roseburg, Ore. Obama addressed the media with a request for voters. He referenced prior mass shootings in America — the most recent being the theater shooting in Lafayette, La. — and he expressed his sadness at how these shootings (and his subsequent place on the podium) have become “routine”:
“As I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I say each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger 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.”
Obama paid tribute to the families and loved ones whose lives have been changed forever” in Oregon. He also called for changes in gun laws:
“We are the only advanced country on earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months. Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, ‘The United States of America 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. And later that day, there was a mass shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana.”
Within his speech, Obama warned that his opponents would accuse him of using the Oregon tragedy to meet an agenda, and he’s okay with it: “This is something we should politicize. This is a political choice that we make.”
(Via USA Today)