WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Thursday evening that the “routine” nature of mass shootings in America will continue unless the country’s politics changes.
“This is a political choice that we make, to allow this to happen every few months in America,” said the president, who was visibly frustrated as he delivered a statement on Thursday’s mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon.
Obama has frequently railed against Congress’ refusal to pass additional gun control measures in an effort to curb mass shootings, especially in the wake of the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre of 20 students and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.. But on Thursday he delivered remarks in which he veered from anger to incredulity as he described his amazement that a slew of horrific attacks had failed to spur a response from Washington’s political establishment.
“There’s been another mass shooting in America,” he declared at the outset of his comments in the Brady Press Briefing Room, named for President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, who was shot during a March 1981 assassination attempt on the president. “That means there’s another community stunned with grief and communities across the country forced to relive their own anguish and parents across the country scared because they know it might have been their families and their children.”
“But as I said just a few months ago,” he said, his voice rising to a higher pitch, “and I said a few months before that, and I’ve said each time we see one of these mass shootings, 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,” he said, punctuating the word “anger” with added emphasis. “And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted some place else in America.”
After noting how the country is willing to devote enormous resources to address other threats to human life, ranging from terrorist strikes to unsafe bridges, Obama questioned why there was a different response when it came to guns.
“So the notion that gun violence is somehow different? That our freedom, and our Constitution, prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners all across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do everything they could do under such regulations?” he asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Obama bemoaned the fact that these tragedies had become so frequent, he said, they no longer shocked the public. He urged media outlets to list the number of Americans who die each year from terrorist attacks against the number who are killed by guns, to show how much greater a threat gun violence poses to the country.
“Somehow this has become routine,” he said, looking a bit incredulous at the prospect. “The reporting is routine. My response to it up here at this podium becomes routine.”
His voice took on an ironic tone: “Right now I can imagine the press releases being cranked out: ‘We need more guns.’”
“Does anybody really believe that?” he asked. “There are scores of responsible gun owners in this country, they know that’s not true.”
While the president said that Thursday’s 20 year-old alleged shooter at Umpqua Community College was mentally ill - “it’s fair to say anybody who does this has a sickness in their mind, regardless of what they think their motivations may be” - he also said other advanced countries with mentally ill citizens do not suffer the same fatalities.
“I’d ask the American people to think how they can get our government to change these laws and to save lives and to let young people grow up. And that will require a change in politics on this issue,” he said, adding that “the continuing death of innocent people should be a factor” when voters choose which elected officials they want to support at the ballot box.
“And each time this happens,” he vowed, “I’m going to bring this up. Each time this happens I am going to say we can actually do something about it, but we’re going to have to change our laws.”
“I hope and pray that I don’t have to come out again during my tenure as president to offer my condolences to families in these circumstances. But based on my experience as president,” he said, looking grim, “I can’t guarantee that. And that’s terrible to say. And it can change.”
Officials lower toll in Oregon shooting
ROSEBURG, Ore. – A gunman opened fire at a rural Oregon community college Thursday, killing at least 10 people before dying in a shootout with police, authorities said.
The killer, identified only as a 20-year-old man, invaded a classroom and demanded that people stand up and state their religion before spraying more bullets, one student reported.
Authorities shed no light on the gunman’s motive and said they were investigating.
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said 10 people were dead and seven wounded after the attack at Umpqua Community College in the small timber town of Roseburg, about 180 miles south of Portland. He did not clarify whether the number of dead included the gunman.
Earlier, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said 13 people were killed. It was unclear what led to the discrepancy.
“It’s been a terrible day,” a grim-faced Hanlin said. “Certainly this is a huge shock to our community.”
Police began receiving calls about a campus shooting at 10:38 a.m. The school has a single unarmed security guard.
Kortney Moore, 18, said she was in a freshman writing class when a shot came through the window and hit the teacher in the head.
The gunman then entered the Snyder Hall classroom and told people to get on the floor, she told the Roseburg News-Review newspaper. He told people to stand up and state their religion before opening fire.
Next door, students heard a loud thud and then a volley of gunfire, Brady Winder, 23, told the newspaper.
Students scrambled “like ants, people screaming, ‘Get out!”’ Winder said. He said one woman swam across a creek to get away.
The sheriff said officers had a shootout with the gunman, but it was not clear if he was killed by authorities or whether he took his own life.
The gunfire sparked panic as students ran for safety and police and ambulances rushed to the scene.
Lorie Andrews, who lives across the street from the campus, heard what sounded like fireworks and then saw police cruisers streaming in. She spoke with students as they left.
“One girl came out wrapped in a blanket with blood on her,” she said.
Some students were in tears as they left. Police lined up students in a parking lot with their hands over their heads and searched them before they were bused with faculty to the nearby county fairgrounds, where counselors were available and some parents waited for their children.
Jessica Chandler of Myrtle Creek, south of Roseburg, was at the fairgrounds desperately seeking information about her 18-year-old daughter, Rebecka Carnes.
“I don’t know where she is. I don’t know if she’s wounded. I have no idea where she’s at,” Chandler said.
Carnes’ best friend told Chandler that her daughter had been flown by helicopter to a hospital, but she had not been able to find her at area medical centers.
Interim college President Rita Cavin said it was awful to watch families waiting for the last bus of survivors and their loved ones were not on it.
“This is a tragedy and an anomaly,” she said. “We have a wonderful, warm, loving and friendly campus.”
The sheriff described the town of 22,000 as a peaceful community that has crime like any other. In fact, it’s no stranger to school gun violence. A freshman at the local high school shot and wounded a fellow student in 2006.
The community along Interstate 5 west of the Cascade Mountains is in an area where the timber industry has struggled. In recent years, officials have tried to promote the region as a tourist destination for vineyards and outdoor activities.
Many of the students in local school district go on to attend the college of 3,000 students.
“We are a small, tight community, and there is no doubt that we will have staff and students that have family and friends impacted by this event,” Roseburg Public Schools Superintendent Gerry Washburn said.
Former UCC President Joe Olson, who retired in June after four years, said the school had no formal security staff, just one officer on a shift.
One of the biggest debates on campus last year was whether to post armed security officers on campus to respond to a shooting.
“I suspect this is going to start a discussion across the country about how community colleges prepare themselves for events like this,” he said.
There were no immediate plans to upgrade security on the campus in light of the shooting, Cavin said.
Associated Press writers Steven Dubois in Portland, Oregon; Martha Mendoza in Sana Cruz, California; and Gene Johnson and Donna Blankinship in Seattle contributed to this report. Brian Melley contributed writing from Los Angeles.
