Yahoo: Citing his failure to pass stricter gun laws in 2013, President Obama used dramatic language to discuss the gun debate on Friday. “It is hard to reduce the easy availability of guns,” Obama complained during a town hall meeting at South Carolina’s Benedict College.
“As long as you can go on into some neighborhoods, and it’s easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable,” Obama continued. “As long as that’s the case, we’re going to continue to see unnecessary violence.”
“Despite the failure of Congress to act, despite the failure of too many state legislators to act, in fact, in some place it is goes in the opposite direction,” he said, asserting that some gun rights supporters believe “we should have firearms in kindergarten and we should have machine guns and you know in bars.”
“You think I’m exaggerating, you look at some of these laws that come up,” Obama added.
“I thought after what happened at Sandy Hook would make us think about it,” Obama said. “You would have thought at that point that’s got to be enough of a motivator for us to want to do something about this. But we couldn’t get it done.”
Obama was referencing a 2013 effort to expand background checks for gun purchases. The administration and other Democrats pushed the measure following the Dec. 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn. “We have tried as much as we can administratively to implement background checks,” Obama said.
DCG