Acknowledging that he hasn’t succeeded in making gun control a national cause, President Obama said he will use his last year to push it over the finish line.
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“I will do everything I can to make sure that there’s a sustained attention paid to this thing,” Obama told GQ magazine. Asked if it would the the “dominant issue of year eight,” Obama said, “I hope so.”
Obama has tried several times to push Clinton-era style gun control initiatives following publicized shootings, but won no help from Congress.
He blamed a lack of public outrage for inaction.
“In the absence of a movement politically in which people say, ‘Enough is enough,’ we’re going to continue to see, unfortunately, these tragedies take place,” the president said.
He also put the blame on American gun violence on the weapons themselves, not the shooters or their mental state.
“The main thing that I’ve been trying to communicate over the last several of these horrific episodes is that, contrary to popular belief, Americans are not more violent than people in other developed countries. But they have more deadly weapons to act out their rage, and that’s the only main variable that you see between the U.S. and these other countries,” he said.
His promise to make the issue his top priority in lame duck won applause from the anti-gun group Everytown For Gun Safety, funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In a statement, the group said that in the interview, Obama cited his executive actions on guns and “hinted that there could be more on the way.”
Everytown’s Jack Warner said, “If President Obama hopes guns are the dominant issue of his last year in office, taking action on gun trafficking would be a great place to start.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
