President Obama announced plans to meet with Attorney General Loretta Lynch Monday about “options” for the country’s gun laws and vowed to move forward on the “unfinished business” of gun control.
The president, who touted his gun control plan in his weekly address Friday, will reportedly issue executive actions to place new restrictions on gun sales in the new year, his last in office.
“Last month, we remembered the third anniversary of Newtown,” Obama said, referring to a Dec. 2012 shooting in a Connecticut elementary school. “All across America, survivors of gun violence and those who lost a parent or a child or a spouse to gun violence are forced to mark those anniversaires every single day.”
Obama criticized the “gun lobby” for blocking previous attempts to pass bipartisan legislation that, among other provisions, expanded background checks.
“It was supported by a majority of NRA households,” Obama said. “But the gun lobby mobilized against it.”
The president’s renewed gun control push comes just a few weeks after a pair of Islamic State-inspired shooters killed 14 in a San Bernardino, Calif. shooting.
Democrats quickly pointed to the incident as evidence of the need for tougher gun laws, while Republicans cited it as an example of the failure of the president’s policies for dealing with the Islamic State.
