President Obama on Wednesday spoke out about the shooting during a live newscast earlier that morning that left two journalists dead, calling for action on gun control.
“It breaks my heart every time you read about or hear about these kinds of incidents,” he said during an interview with Philadephia television station WPVI.
“What we know is that the number of people who die from gun-related incidents around this country dwarfs any deaths that happen through terrorism,” he later added.
During an interview with Seattle television station KIRO, Obama said that the incident shows that legislators in the U.S. need to work to reduce gun violence.
“My heart goes out to them, to the families. Sadly, these kinds of events happen too often. It’s a testimony in this case to the fact that local journalists, they go into some tough places,” he said. “This wasn’t one of those situations. They should have been safe. I think it’s one more argument for why we need to look at how we can reduce gun violence in this country.”
Early Wednesday morning, a gunman shot and killed two journalists for Virginia television station WDBJ, reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward. A third individual, Vicki Gardner, was injured in the shooting. The suspect, who was identified as Vester Lee Flanagan, died hours later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Only a matter of time before the attack dogs come out screaming against Obama making this political, or some such nonsense.
These victims were out just doing their jobs in a public place. They weren’t in any kind of dangerous neighborhood. The perp was just someone with a grudge.
What’s being missed here is that gun violence is invading a lot of otherwise-safe jobs that, pretty soon, it will be too dangerous to do. I’ve been hearing lately about violence against real estate agents, who are doing nothing more than showing homes or running open houses in properties for sale. Agents are getting attacked and murdered for doing their jobs.
It’s been going on for quite a while, but is escalating.
and no one seems to care except with these high profile cases. If only the other 15-30 families destroyed by gun violence each day were given the same treatment that those affected by this most recent tragedy. They would fill an hour of news every night with the devastation caused to the loved ones by gun violence. Families destroyed every day by mentally unstable people with access to guns. The president is so right booga booga booga everyone is afraid of terrorists . I think their fears are misplaced
Its amazing to think how far we’ll go to prevent, cure or raise funds for research toward killer diseases. Or how many drums beat for blood when somebody with a foreign name blows something up in a foreign country. Or the policies in place to make sure that only people of a certain age can drive or purchase alcohol. We’ve got the largest and most powerful military in the world, endless causes we run marathons for and who knows how many books written by doctors on how to live longer. We somehow only seem to really care about gun deaths when the person doing the killing serves some political punching bag, like the recent killing by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco. Somehow all of these things are important because, apparently, people want to live in a world where we can reasonably hope to live to 80 years old.
But the growing trend of completely pointless killings, mass murders (sometimes involving whole classrooms full of little kids) at the hands of deranged nut bags or domestic terrorists who had far too easy of a time getting a hold of a firearm? Nope, nothing on how to prevent that. Instead, we have the NRA. A well-funded, politically powerful organization that wants to promote more guns, and a bunch of shit-for-brains useful idiot trolls who think gun-free zones are the problem. And we wouldn’t wat to offend them! Oh no! Can’t let that happen - lets do nothing!
America truly is a stupid country, and fuck the NRA.
Short of declaring the NRA a criminal organization or illegal enemy combatants, what can be done about it?
Amen! I am not looking forward to the time when I will have to relocate from a progressive, democratic, non-gun-crazed country (Germany) back to the US - even if it is to the relatively civilized Pacific Northwest.