House Speaker John Boehner called on President Obama Wednesday to work with Congress on new legislation that could stop mentally ill people from acquiring guns, and prevent the mass shootings such as last week’s deadly attack at an Oregon community college.
“Let’s talk about what can we do to make sure that people with serious mental illness don’t have access to weapons,” Boehner, who is retiring Oct. 30, told reporters on Wednesday. “Let’s quit fighting over this and let’s start thinking about what is doable and what would have an impact.”
Boehner criticized President Obama for his remarks following the gun attack that killed nine people at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, in which the president blamed the lack of gun legislation on the GOP Congress.
“My heart goes out to the victims that lost their lives and were injured in Oregon last week,” Boehner said. “We’ve seen far too many of these. In ’09 and ’10, with Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, with a Democrat president, this clearly was not a priority for them.”
The president, Boehner said, “can rail all he wants,” but said it would be more efficient to talk about about where the two parties might find compromise.
Boehner did not provide specifics about what kind of legislation Republicans might support, such as expanding background checks for those who want to purchase guns.
“I’m not the expert on each of the individual policies, but I would like to see us work together on finding effective ways to reduce these horrific incidents,” Boehner said.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, mostly Republicans, blocked gun control legislation in the Senate in 2013 that would have expanded background checks and banned certain guns and gun clips.
