“First-graders”, he said, resting his chin on his hand and wiping away tears as he recalled the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
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“Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad”, Obama said as the tears flowed. He’ll need all the outrage and strength he can muster to make real progress.
The administration will also invest $500 million to expand access to the treatment of mental illness across the country, he said. At the same time, he emphasized that eligible gun buyers will find it quicker to purchase a gun because part of the president’s plan involves hiring more people to conduct background checks.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and an avid deer hunter, released a statement, blasting the president’s gun agenda as “a form of intimidation that undermines liberty” and violates the Second Amendment.
Here in Louisiana, mixed reaction to President Obama’s controversial gun control announcement on Tuesday continues to pour in. That’s reasonable for any ethical gun dealer or any law-abiding gun owner. And I want to say that there’s only about 20 percent of my dealers that don’t have a license.
But they’re also limited.
Some congressional Republicans are threatening court action to halt Obama’s gun control proposals, but the long legal route might see President Obama leave office in early 2017 before making any difference. “It won’t happen during this Congress. It won’t happen during my presidency”. They sell these guns in volumes and they sell ammunition.
Obama tasked his senior law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey, with crafting the new regulations past year.
“The American people have to get engaged, so what we will be doing is reaching out to the American people and urging them to feel as passionately about this issue as the NRA feels about this issue”, Jarrett said. He believes that once Congress supports his call to action, gun violence can be reduced “a whole lot”.
“It is a myth that the good guy with the gun will solve all our problems”, she said.
Obama is scheduled to hold a town hall meeting in Virginia on Thursday about gun safety.
But as the president noted, families across America quietly mark these sad anniversaries every day.
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“We keep putting more and more restrictions on our right to bear arms, not our privilege but our right”, said Thomas, “when the Second Amendment says that right shall not be infringed”.
