After a gunman opened fire at a community college in Oregon, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that gun control is still a priority for President Barack Obama – but was less than enthusiastic about the ability to push legislation through Congress.
But, if legislation passes, he said, there must be a “fundamental change in the way American people communicate this priority to Congress.”
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
A reporter asked Earnest if gun control measures were low on the priority for the remaining 15 months of the administration.
“The issue of sensible steps that can be taken to protect our communities from gun violence continues to be a top priority of this administration,” Earnest said.
Associated Press reported at least seven people were dead from the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.
The shooting was first reported while the White House press briefing was occurring and Earnest did not address the Oregon incident directly, but rather generally spoke about the president’s position on gun violence. It was not clear whether he was aware of the matter.
“There are some commonsense steps, things like closing the gun show loophole and others, that have strong bipartisan support across the country,” Earnest said. “According to some polling data, there is even a majority of Republicans that support closing the gun show loophole. We’ve not yet seen that kind of strong bipartisan support across the country translate into legislative support in the U.S. Congress that is sufficient to pass legislation that would implement these commonsense solutions.”
The Associated Press reported at 3:50 p.m., after the press briefing had ended, that Obama has been briefed by his homeland security adviser and has requested continual updates throughout the day.
Earnest said that news laws are not the only answer.
“That said, we’ve been pretty candid about the fact that there is no piece of legislation that can be passed into law by the Congress that would prevent every single incident of gun violence,” Earnest said. “There are some commonsense things we can do and the vast majority of the American people share the president’s view in wondering why Congress would take those commonsense steps.”
But he said that the American public must get involved to pressure Congress to take action.
“The president has been quite candid about why this is and has been a source of frustration for him. It has not at all been lowered on the priority scale,” Earnest said. “But at the same time, the president is quite realistic that we’ll need to see a fundamental change in the way American people communicate this priority to Congress before we’ll see a different outcome in the legislative process.”
