White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged that a key gun control policy advocated by President Barack Obama wouldn’t have prevented the fatal shooting of two journalists in Roanoke, Virginia, but he said Congress should pass more gun control anyway.
"There’s no doubt we’ve learned quite a bit more about this tragic case," Earnest said Friday. "The changes this administration has long advocated, things like changing the gun show loophole for backgrounds checks, it appears that would not have applied in this particular case."
"We have never made the case that any one piece of legislation is going to successfully prevent every single act of violence," Earnest said. "There is no denying that Americans are killed every week, if not every day, whose lives could have been saved with some common-sense changes."
Earnest said the on-air horror of this shooting made it more high profile, but said there are many such tragedies that happen every day that don’t get such attention, which is why stricter laws are need. He said those lawas are being blocked by the National Rifle Association.
"There are similarly shocking acts of violence that don’t get this attention that could be prevented if Congress, or at least if so many members of Congress, frankly, weren’t scared of the NRA," Earnest said.
