President Obama won’t support or vote for any candidate for president, even another Democrat, who doesn’t back what he characterizes as “common-sense” gun reform.
Obama made the blanket statement in a New York Times op-ed he penned titled, “Barack Obama: Guns are our shared responsibility.”
The Times posted the op-ed on its website’s opinion pages less than an hour before the president was set to take questions from audience members in a forum on guns hosted by CNN. That “townhall,” as its being billed, will focus on the issue of gun violence and the president’s executive actions announced Tuesday aimed at broadening background checks for gun buyers, among other efforts.
“Even as I continue to take every action possible as president, I will also take every action I can as a citizen,” he wrote. “I will not campaign for, vote for or support any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform.”
“And if the 90 percent of Americans who do support common-sense gun reforms join me, we will elect the leadership we deserve,” he added, referring to an Oct. 27 CBS/New York Times poll that found that 92 percent of all Americans back background checks for all gun buyers.
Hillary Clinton largely backs the same gun reforms that Obama seeks, and his executive actions on guns he announced Tuesday aimed at expanding background checks for gun buyers. She also has said she’ll sign gun executive orders of her own if elected president.
Obama statement is likely only aimed at Bernie Sanders, the socialist candidate from Vermont seeking the Democratic nomination for president.
Sanders, whose home state is largely pro-gun, has a mixed record on guns. He opposed the Brady Law back in 1993 that instituted a mandatory waiting period for all guns bought through licensed gun stores so that federal background checks could be completed. But he supported a ban on certain assault-style weapons the next year.
In 2006, he supported efforts by the gun lobby to grant special legal immunity to gun makers and dealers, shielding them from liability related to basic negligence in the use of their products.
In the opening lines of his op-ed, Obama said the epidemic of gun violence in the United States is a “crisis.”
“A national crisis like this demands a national response,” he continued. Reducing guns violence will be hard … It won’t happen during my presidency. Still, there are steps we can take now to save lives.”
“And all of us – at every level of government, in the private sector and as citizens — have to do our part,” he continued. “We all have a responsibility.”
