President Obama reacted to Wednesday’s murders in Charleston by saying “there’s something we can do about” mass killings in America, but a leading gun-rights leader says the president is just angling for more gun-control measures.
On Thursday, Obama mourned the nine people murdered at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Twenty-one-year-old Dylann Roof is in custody for the killings. He has admitted committing the murders, and sources say he does not regret his actions.
However, in addition to expressing sympathies to the families and communities impacted by the murders, Obama also returned to the debate over guns.
“We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said.
“And at some point it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it, and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively,” he said.
In the midst of that statement, Obama appeared to acknowledge the political realities in Washington are not in his favor on this issue.
“I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now,” he said.
Why carrying in church is biblical – get Charles van Wyk’s classic “Shooting Back”
In 2013, Obama pushed hard for the U.S. Senate (then controlled by Democrats) to approve new measures, including expanded background checks, but the bipartisan bill failed to advance.
Republicans now control both the House and Senate, so does this mean Obama knows he can’t advance the issue over the remainder of his term? Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt said that may not stop Obama from applying the full-court press.
“I’d bet a small amount of money on the president continuing to push, because he is so incredibly ideologically driven,” Pratt said. “Even as he’s recognizing the difficulty of the task, I don’t think that is going to inhibit him. I hope it will, but I don’t think so.”
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Larry Pratt:
Pratt sees the limited time remaining in the Obama administration as a major motivating factor in a possible gun-control push.
“This man is hard, hard left,” he said. “He believes the government should control everything. Now, he’s got less than two years to really snap the socialist vise on the country. I don’t see him backing off.”
Pratt and other critics assert that Obama’s proposed gun laws would not have made a difference in Charleston, since the victims were killed with a pistol rather than a so-called assault rifle. High-capacity magazines of ammunition were also not involved.
Pratt says South Carolina’s laws put the members of Emanuel AME Church at a disadvantage.
“The law in South Carolina, which was actively supported by [pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney] is that you cannot have a gun at a church unless the pastor or the governance of the church says it’s OK,” Pratt said.
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He said the horror in Charleston follows an unmistakable pattern by recent mass murderers.
“The biggest problem occurs in gun-free zones,” he explained. “That’s where all but one of our mass murders has occurred. So you get a dirt-bag in a gun-free zone intent on committing mass murder, and it takes awhile before a good guy with a gun can get there.”
Another major reason that killers strike where they do, according to Pratt, is the ability of law-abiding citizens to obtain a gun. He said the statistics in this area are overwhelming.
“It’s easier to protect yourself in a lot of parts of the country,” Pratt said. “In those parts of the country where access to guns is not impeded by the kind of laws that the state senator wanted and the president wants, the murder rate and violent crime rate is lower where gun control is not as onerous.”
He said the areas with the most restrictive gun laws see a much different story.
“The problem we have in our country with violent crime and people using guns to commit heinous acts, occurs in our urban centers, where the gun-control laws tend to be the most severe,” Pratt said. “So the president really doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on.”
According to Pratt, the only people inconvenienced by cracking down on guns are the people who would act responsibly.
“I think the answer is to stop kidding ourselves,” he said. “Criminals are not going to obey the law, so let’s not make it difficult for the good guys to have guns.”
See WND’s extensive coverage of the Charleston, South Carolina, church massacre:
Was church shooter on powerful mind-altering drug?
Charleston shooter ‘wanted to start a civil war’
Big radio talkers react to church massacre
Charleston church shooter: ‘You rape our women’
Obama: America must ‘do something’ about ‘gun violence
Hero of 1993 church attack calls for being armed
BIG LIST of drug-induced killers
Dylann Roof confesses: ‘Everyone so nice’ at church
‘You hurt a lot of people, but I forgive you’
Lindsey Graham defends Confederate flag
Carolina courage in face of my cousin’s murder
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