“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”.
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Hours after the Roseburg shooting, Obama said the nation had fallen into a routine of grieving over mass shootings without acting to stop them.
Obama has called the failure to enact stricter gun laws one of his biggest frustrations as president.
In his remarks last week, the President said he would continue to raise the need for gun control reform every time a shooting takes place in the US. “We’re going to have to come together as a country, but today is about the families”.
Also on Friday, campus shootings were reported in Arizona and Texas.
A large banner, “Obama Go Home”, was hung at the entrance to the airport, and signs berated his stands on guns while others praised the local sheriff, John Hanlin, for his past insistence that he wouldn’t enforce gun restrictions he regarded as unconstitutional.
One student who heard the shooting happen – and thought it was just fireworks at first – told the AP, “How am I supposed to feel safe where I’m learning?”
Obama met with family members of victims at Roseburg High School for about an hour.
“The president is here for the families”, she said. “Most people believe that he is politicizing this and using this as a platform for gun control and I don’t think it’s genuine”. Administration officials have said that they expect any executive action regarding background checks for gun sales would be similarly opposed by conservatives. “He’s coming here purely to push his garbage, and we don’t want it”, said Michelle Finn, who is helping to organize the protests planned for intersections near the small airport where Obama’s helicopter is expected to touch down.
Last week, Mr Obama angrily denounced the killings as a symptom of a political choice by United States lawmakers to bow to pressure from the powerful National Rifle Association lobby group instead of reforming gun laws.
The story is now all too familiar: a disgruntled young man opens fire, innocent people are slaughtered, news agencies report, police work to establish a motive, lives are changed forever, and the president lashes out with indignation, real or feigned, over the lack of gun control.
“Law-abiding gun owners are not the problem, nor is their right to keep and bear arms”, Gottlieb said, “and Obama knows it. But true to the left wing principle of never letting a tragedy go to waste, the president and other anti-gunners have launched a massive attack on the Second Amendment”.
His trip to Roseburg was quick and relatively low-profile, especially compared to previous presidential appearances following mass shootings.
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“What we’re doing now is not working”, said Lackey, one of the few demonstrators who showed up to support Obama.
