Jay Carney: Obama 'Remains Committed' to More Gun Control After Nevada School Shooting

One day after a deadly middle school shooting in Nevada, President Barack Obama “remains committed” to pushing for stricter gun control laws and will “keep at it,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday.

President Barack Obama speaks on gun control beside former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in the White House Rose Garden, April 17, 2013. (AFP/Getty Images)

Police say a 12-year-old boy at Sparks Middle School near Reno, Nev., shot and injured two classmates and killed math teacher Mike Landsberry, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan and who had been trying to talk the shooter out of harming others. The 12-year-old boy also killed himself.

Carney said Obama is "heartbroken" over the situation, and reiterated the president's disappointment over expanded background check legislation failing to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate after the mass slaying at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., in December.

“With regards for the need to take common-sense measures on the need to reduce gun violence, the president remains committed to doing just that,” Carney said. “We made no secret of the fact that the president was very disappointed in the Senate's failure to pass a bill that would have expanded and improved our background check system that would have in no way infringed upon Americans' Second Amendment rights, a bill that was supported by a majority of the American people in every state in the country and that includes the reddest states in the nation."

Carney added, “So he's going to keep at it and keep looking at ways we can take these common-sense steps.”

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