President Obama on Thursday urged Americans to reconsider new controls on guns in the wake of Wednesday night’s shooting in Charleston, S.C., that left nine dead, even as he mourned the shooting and its victims.
Obama said the shooting is another example of people having “no trouble getting their hands on a gun.”
“It is in our power to do something about it,” Obama said from the White House, alongside Vice President Joe Biden. “I’ve had to make statements like this too many times – communities have had to endure it too many times.”
“Now is the time for mourning and healing, but to be clear, some at time we have to reckon as a country that this type of mass violence doesn’t happen in other countries…,” he said. “It doesn’t happen with this type of frequency in other countries…and it’s within our power to do something about it.”
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“This kind of mass violence doesn’t happen in other advanced countries,” he said. “It just doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency.”
Obama noted that the church has played an historic role for blacks in South Carolina. “This is a sacred place in the history of Charleston and in the history of America,” he said.
“Any death of this sort is a tragedy, any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy,” he said. “There is something particularly heartbreaking about death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace — in a place of worship.”
Dylann Roof was arrested Thursday after killing nine people assembled at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for Wednesday night bible study.
The 21-year-old Roof reportedly said, “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go,” as he fired into the crowd, killing six women and three men.
Emanuel AME is among the oldest African-American churches in the country; it was established in 1816.
