The White House said Wednesday that the Orlando shooting on Sunday shows the NRA is wrong when it says the availability of guns will make people safer, since mass shootings continue to happen.
Presidential press secretary Josh Earnest said the incident is a “graphic illustration of the lie the [National Rifle Association] says that having more guns on streets is going to make us safer,” because the more guns that are sold, there are “more guns on the streets, these shootings continue to happen.”
Earnest was responding to a question from a Fox News reporter about whether Obama becomes the “greatest gun salesman” in the country when he speaks out against the NRA and guns after mass shootings like the one in Orlando, because gun sales often spike nationwide after Obama makes these efforts.
He said the Orlando terrorist attack is understandably getting “outsized” attention when it comes to gun violence, especially considering the dozens of shootings that take place every day in the United States. But he said it’s important to focus on shootings that don’t involve as many people but are still tragic.
He noted that there were 43 other shootings across the country the same day of the Orlando attack, which killed 49 innocent people.
“So the incident in Orlando is the worst mass shooting in American history, so I certainly understand why it’s getting outsized attention, it should,” he said. “But it shouldn’t come at the expense of what is a widespread gun violence problem that doesn’t get as much attention as it should.”
Republicans in Congress, he said, blocked gun-control legislation after the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shootings that killed 20 first graders, the shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and other terrible mass shootings in Roseburg, Ore., and Aurora, Colo.
The families of the children killed and injured at Sandy Hook elementary are in Washington today for a gala fundraising event where Vice President Joe Biden will speak, he said.
Earnest also said he was skeptical that a meeting between Donald Trump and top National Rifle Association executives would lead to an effort to close a loophole allowing people on a terrorist “no fly” list to buy guns.
“We’ll see,” Earnest said when asked about the billionaire businessman’s meeting at the NRA Wednesday. “Right now we see every Republican in the Senate is on the record protecting a loophole that allows individuals who are suspected of having ties to terrorism and their ability to purchase a gun.”
“I’m not really sure why Republicans have this position but the president believes that our country is safer if there are laws that prevent individuals on the no-fly list to buy a gun,” he said. “…If it’s too dangerous for you to board an airplane, it should be too dangerous for you to buy a gun.”
Earnest said the White House “would welcome support from anybody, including the presumptive Republican nominee.”
“It’s unclear at this point what his intentions are.”
