Eight days after the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College, President Obama is coming to Roseburg, Ore., where he’ll meet privately with victims’ families and survivors.
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“Since the announcement that President Obama may be in the Roseburg area on Friday to meet with the families that lost loved ones at Umpqua Community College, news outlets have been announcing that the president was not welcome in Roseburg”.
Roseburg Mayor Larry Rich, who joined Roseburg City Council members in issuing a statement of welcome for the president following reports earlier this week that many residents didn’t want him to visit, joined the president for the private meeting. Twenty-two percent of American adults say they personally know someone who was killed by another person with a gun, with 6 percent saying the victim was someone in their family. “So we’re going to have to come together as a country to work on these rights, but today it’s about the families and their grief and the love we feel for them”.
About 200 protesters were milling around outside Roseburg airport Friday, a few carrying placards saying Obama was not welcome and “Obama Go Home”.
After Obama touched down in Oregon, he was greeted with signs that addressed his views on gun control, as well as personal remarks against him, according to Talking Points Memo. Hood, Tucson, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Navy Yard, Isla Vista, Charleston and now Roseburg – all have become familiar touchstones in America’s complex relationship with guns, violence and regulations. And he added that the nation lacked “common sense gun laws”.
KARLINSKY: Gun rights supporters – many of them openly armed – gathered by the hundreds, angry that Obama made a gun control plea to the nation just hours after nine were murdered here. “I never thought it would happen here”, student Megan Aardahl told CNN, describing how her room was just yards from where the shooting took place. Democrats are pitching the formation of a special committee to investigate gun violence, similar to panels the GOP-led House established to investigate Planned Parenthood and the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans.
“I think they would be upset if he didn’t come”. She says that was when he said he likes the Ducks, but they aren’t doing so well.
University spokesman Kendrick Callis said the shooting was reported around 11:30 a.m.at University Courtyard Apartments on the edge of the Houston campus, which has about 9,700 students.
The Douglas County Commissioners said they looked forward to Obama’s visit.
“It’s our God-given right to protect ourselves”, she said.
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However, Obama has often expressed frustration that political opposition and the powerful gun lobby have prevented new gun control measures in Congress.
