Former President Barack Obama released a statement Monday in the aftermath of the mass shootings that took place in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio over the weekend.
After expressing his family’s condolences for the victims of the attacks, Obama said, “no other nation on Earth comes close to experiencing the frequency of mass shootings that we see int he United State. No other developed nation tolerates the levels of gun violence that we do.”
Obama criticized people who say “tougher gun laws won’t stop all murders” because “the evidence shows that they can stop some killings.”
He pointed to what appears to be the motivation for the El Paso shooter, whose alleged manifesto expressed hatred for Hispanics, as “troubled individuals who embrace racist ideologies and themselves obligated to act violently to preserve white supremacy.”
The former president, who previously said not passing gun control as one of his biggest regrets, appeared to have made subtle jabs at President Trump in the last paragraph of his statement.
“We should soundly reject language coming of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racists sentiments; leaders who demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people,” he said.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 5, 2019
Until all of us stand up and insist on holding public officials accountable for changing our gun laws, these tragedies will keep happening: https://t.co/reTnmcg3xo
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 5, 2019
Obama’s statement comes after Trump addressed the media at the White House on Tuesday morning, where he condemned “racist hate.”
“The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate. In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy. These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America,” Trump said. “Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart, and devours the soul.”
