WASHINGTON (AP) — In a rare Oval Office address, President Barack Obama vowed Sunday night the United States would overcome a terror threat that has entered a “new phase” as he sought to reassure Americans shaken by recent attacks in Paris and California.
“I know that after so much war, many Americans are asking whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure,” he said, speaking from a lectern in his West Wing office.
The president’s speech followed Wednesday’s shooting in San Bernardino, California, that killed 14 people and wounded 21. Authorities say a couple carried out the attack and the wife pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader in a Facebook post.
Obama said that while there was no evidence that the shooters were directed by a terror network overseas or part of a broader plot, “the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization.”
“This was an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people,” he said in the 13-minute address.
The president announced no significant shift in U.S. strategy and offered no new policy prescriptions for defeating the Islamic State, underscoring both his confidence in his current approach and the lack of easy options for countering the extremist group. He did call on Congress to tighten America’s visa waiver program and to pass a new authorization for military actions underway against IS in Iraq and Syria.
The president also reiterated his call for tightening U.S. gun laws, saying no matter how effective law enforcement and intelligence are, they can’t identify every would-be shooter. He called it a matter of national security to prevent potential killers from getting guns.
In speaking from the Oval Office, Obama turned to a tool of the presidency that he has used infrequently. He’s made televised statements from the Oval Office just twice, the last in 2010 when he announced the end of combat missions in Iraq.
While Obama has spoken frequently about the Islamic State in recent news conferences and other events, the decision to speak in prime-time reflected concern among his advisers that his message isn’t breaking through. The White House has been particularly concerned about the heated rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates about Muslims.
The president implored Americans to not turn against Muslims at home, saying the Islamic State was driven by a desire to spark a war between the West and Islam. Still, he called on Muslims in the U.S. and around the world to take up the cause of fighting extremism.
The spread of radical Islam, he said, is “a real problem that Muslims most confront without excuse.”
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That people known to be bad people (on the no fly list or avowed members of terrorist groups) can buy guns and Congress won’t fix this gaping loophole is beyond my understanding. And yet republicans who control Congress criticize Obama. Something profound is wrong here.
Gun control nuts have one refrain for everything.
But if it wasn’t guns it would be suicide vests & bombs.
Democrats have once again found a way to be losers.
Great speech. The NYT misreported it as saying he repeated the same things he’s said before. What they missed were his pointed remarks about the GOP Congress refusing to give him authorization for military action against ISIL, AND his challenge to the Muslims to put their own house in order. He was direct in telling them that they, Muslims, had put those who want violence and murder out of bounds in their religion.
After all, what is religion good for if it doesn’t rein in murderous instincts?
Gun addicts–are you one?-- always excuse the bad behaviors of their own kind.
Closing those particular loopholes doesn’t solve for the Syed Farooks or the Robert Dears, and catches a bunch of good people up in the net. None of the recent mass shootings in America were, to my knowledge, committed by people on the no-fly list, and none were committed by people who were avowed members of terrorist groups, unless you count making a statement immediately before an act of terror in Malik’s case. Even Dylan Roof wasn’t a member of a terrorist group–he had sympathies with hate groups, but sympathies aren’t illegal in America.
I’m more concerned with loopholes, like the gun show loophole, that prevent effective safety measures from taking place effectively. I’m more concerned with closing in on straw purchases of guns from FFL dealers. Those are more effective in significantly reducing the number of guns in the hands of people who would use them to kill others.