Tearful Obama targets US gun violence with executive action that sidesteps Congress
Tears filling his eyes as he summoned the ghosts of nearly two dozen children killed three years ago in their Connecticut classrooms, US President Barack Obama said he was pressing ahead with new firearms restrictions unilaterally because the level of gun violence in the United States has robbed so many Americans of their basic right to gather safely.
“First-graders, in Newtown,” he said Tuesday, pausing as he contemplated the 20 children who died along with six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “First-graders.”
The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage, but they can’t hold America hostage
“And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet,” the president said, pausing again as he flicked away a few tears. “Every time I think about those kids, it makes me mad. And by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.”
Although the gun measures Obama outlined during his remarks in the East Room of the White House are modest, he may have succeeded in what he said he wanted to do in the wake of a mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, three months ago: politicise the issue of guns so that it becomes a prominent issue ahead of the 2016 election.
Watch: Obama in tears as he unveils plan to tackle gun violence in US
In a speech that veered from tearful to outraged and even comic, the president said his decision to exercise his executive authority - a move that has infuriated many Republicans - was an effort to prevent further violence and bring the country together on a divisive issue.