Speaking at the National Urban League event in New Orleans, just six days after the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, President Barack Obama embraced some degree of control on the sale of weapons in America. He said responsibility for curtailing bloodshed also rests with parents, neighbors, and teachers to ensure that young people “do not have that void inside them.” The atrocious shooting left 12 dead and many others injured, and Obama pledged to work with lawmakers and a national consensus on combating violence. “We should leave no stone unturned and recognize that we have no greater mission than keeping our young people safe,” Obama said.
The 44th Commander-in-Chief called for stepped-up background checks for people who want to purchase guns and restrictions to keep mentally unbalanced individuals from buying weapons. He says those steps “shouldn’t be controversial, they should be common sense.” Interestingly enough, he added this addendum, saying, “We must also understand that when a child opens fire on other children, there’s a hole in his heart that no government can fill.”
