Thursday, October 01, 2015

WATCH: President Obama's statement on Oregon college shooting

President Obama delivered a statement to the nation on Thursday concerning the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseberg, Oregon, that left multiple people killed and injured.

"Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine, my response here at this podium ends up being routine, the conversation in the aftermath of it, we've become numb to this.

"It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.

"Our thoughts and prayers are not enough.

"It's not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America.

“I hope and pray that I don’t have to come out again in my tenure as president to offer my condolences to families under these circumstances. But based on my experience as president, I can’t guarantee that.

“Somewhere will comment and say, ‘Obama politicized this issue.’ Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.

"Each time this happens. I'm going to bring this up. Each time this happens I'm going to say that we can actually do something about it, but we're going to have to change our laws. And this is not something I can do by myself. I've got to have a Congress, and I've got to have state legislators and governors who are willing to work with me on this.

“I would particularly ask America’s gun owners, who are using those guns properly, safely, to hunt, for sport, or protecting their families, to think about whether your views are properly being represented by the organization that suggests it’s speaking for you.

"This is a political choice that we make, to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.

"Each time this happens I'm going to bring this up. Each time this happens I'm going to say that we can actually do something about it but we're going to have to change our laws and this is not something I can do by myself," President Obama said.

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