The White House doubled down on President Obama’s decision to express concerns about the easy access to guns in the United States in the wake of Thursday night’s sniper attack in Dallas that took the lives of five police officers and wounded at least seven others.
“Our thoughts first and foremost are with the families [of the victims],” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday afternoon during a briefing in Poland. “But the president’s views about the impacts of the easy availability of guns has on our community is a significant source of concern for him.”
“Too many innocent lives have been claimed because of the easy access people have to guns — in some cases, guns that were never intended to be on city streets,” he added.
Reporters pressed Earnest on why Obama immediately made a political point about gun control in the wake of the tragedy when the facts about the attack, including the weapon and the suspect involved, were still up in the air.
The suspect now been identified as member of the U.S. Army who had firearm training and was deployed to Afghanistan at least once.
“I’m unable to speak to the details about what weapons he was using,” Earnest said. “We do know there were other incidents in which individuals were able to purchase an assault weapon and multiply the impact of the violence as a result – I don’t know if that applied in this case…”
“But the president was making a commonsense observation … that there are far too many acts of gun violence that have taken far too many lives,” he continued. “There are some commonsense things that we can do to make our communities a little safer without undermining the rights of law-abiding Americans, and that’s what the president thinks we should do.”
Earnest also said he was encouraged by the comments of Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and his calls for unity in the face of the Dallas attacks earlier Friday even though he and the president may have “differences” in how they believe the country should respond.
“The fact that the Republican speaker of the House and the Democratic president of the U.S. both calling for unity in the face of a remarkably divisive election year, I think is further evidence that the vast majority of Americans have their values in the right place and those are the types of values that get us through tough times,” Earnest said.
Earlier Friday, Ryan took to the House floor to denounce the attacks in Dallas, the deadliest day for law enforcement since 9/11.
“Who can fathom such a horror as this?” Ryan said in a floor speech. He then made reference to Obama’s comments earlier Friday about the shooting, promising that justice will be done.
For now, the president will remain in Poland for the NATO summit, unless there is a change that would merit his return to the United States, Earnest said.
