There are good people on both sides of the gun control argument, President Barack Obama said Wednesday, but he blasted opponents who have “ginned up fears among responsible gun owners that have nothing to do with the facts.”
He said such actions feed into suspicion of government.
You hear some of these quotes, “I need a gun to protect myself from the government.”
But, he said, “the government’s us. These officials are elected by you . . . I am elected by you. I am constrained as they are constrained by a system that our founders put in place. This is a government of and by and for the people.”
“Get the facts,” he said. “We’re not proposing a gun registration system, we’re proposing background checks for criminals.”
Speaking Wednesday before the Denver Police Academy in Colorado, home state to both the Columbine High School and Aurora movie theater shootings, Obama said some senators are vowing to use “obscure procedural stunts” to prevent a vote.
Those senators, mostly Republicans, are not just saying they’ll vote no, Obama said, they’re saying they’ll do everything they can to even allow a vote on a proposal that has overwhelming support.
“They’re saying your opinion doesn’t matter,” he said.
Obama said the country can’t wait for the next Newtown or the next Aurora before acting on gun control, President Barack Obama said, “This time we must do something.”
With polls showing 90 percent overall support for background checks, along with 80 percent of Republicans, Obama said both sides need to try to see things from the other side’s perspective.
He noted that first lady Michelle Obama admitted that if she lived on a remote farm she’d probably want to own a gun herself.
“If somebody just drives up into your driveway . . . you don’t know who these people are. And you don’t know how long it’s going to take for the sheriffs to respond. I can see why you’d want some guns for protection.”
He also talked to a mother who lost a son to a shooting in Chicago who was tired of hearing he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. “He was on his way to school,” the mother said. “He was in the right place.”
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