Mass shooting in Colorado leads to gun control debate
Source: Agencies |
July 27, 2012, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
US President Barack Obama called for tougher background checks on Americans trying to buy a gun as he and Republican challenger Mitt Romney engaged in their most extensive discussions on the gun control issue since last week's massacre in a Colorado theater.
Their pointed comments revived a debate that has faded to the background in national politics and been virtually non-existent in this year's close presidential race.
Romney said in a television interview that changing the nation's laws would not prevent gun-related tragedies. He mistakenly said many weapons used by the shooting suspect were obtained illegally. Authorities say the firearms used to kill 12 people and injure dozens were purchased legally.
"The illegality the governor is referencing is the ordnances, the devices that were in the home," campaign spokesman Danny Diaz said Thursday. "He was not referencing the weapons carried to the theater."
In his speech on Wednesday to the National Urban League civil rights group, Obama said he wanted a national consensus in the effort to stem gun violence.
Despite the Second Amendment's protection of gun rights, Obama said, "I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that an AK-47 belongs in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals - that they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities."
Gun control is a hotly partisan issue in the US. The powerful National Rifle Association, which fights gun control and has huge sway in Congress, has successfully made the issue nearly off limits among most legislators who fear the group's opposition at re-election time.
The White House has faced fresh questions since the shootings about whether Obama, a strong supporter of gun control while a senator from Illinois, would make an election-year push for stricter measures.
Obama acknowledged a national pattern of failing to follow through on calls for tougher gun restrictions after violent crimes.
"Too often, those efforts are defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere," he said.
Obama pledged to work with lawmakers of both parties to stop violence, including the steady drip of urban crime that has cost many young lives.
Their pointed comments revived a debate that has faded to the background in national politics and been virtually non-existent in this year's close presidential race.
Romney said in a television interview that changing the nation's laws would not prevent gun-related tragedies. He mistakenly said many weapons used by the shooting suspect were obtained illegally. Authorities say the firearms used to kill 12 people and injure dozens were purchased legally.
"The illegality the governor is referencing is the ordnances, the devices that were in the home," campaign spokesman Danny Diaz said Thursday. "He was not referencing the weapons carried to the theater."
In his speech on Wednesday to the National Urban League civil rights group, Obama said he wanted a national consensus in the effort to stem gun violence.
Despite the Second Amendment's protection of gun rights, Obama said, "I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that an AK-47 belongs in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals - that they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities."
Gun control is a hotly partisan issue in the US. The powerful National Rifle Association, which fights gun control and has huge sway in Congress, has successfully made the issue nearly off limits among most legislators who fear the group's opposition at re-election time.
The White House has faced fresh questions since the shootings about whether Obama, a strong supporter of gun control while a senator from Illinois, would make an election-year push for stricter measures.
Obama acknowledged a national pattern of failing to follow through on calls for tougher gun restrictions after violent crimes.
"Too often, those efforts are defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere," he said.
Obama pledged to work with lawmakers of both parties to stop violence, including the steady drip of urban crime that has cost many young lives.
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