WASHINGTON — Calling Dec. 14, the day of the Connecticut school massacre, “the worst day of my presidency,” President Obama yesterday vowed to push a package of bills in the new year that will directly address gun violence.
“Anybody who was up in Newtown, who talked to the parents, who talked to the families, understands that something fundamental in America has to change,” Obama said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Specifically, he’s backing an assault-weapon ban, stricter background checks, and banning high-capacity bullet magazines.
“I think there is a vast number of responsible gun owners out there who recognize that we can’t have a situation in which somebody with severe psychological problems is able to get the high-capacity weapons that this individual in Newtown obtained,” he said, referring to the murders of 20 first-graders and six educators by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
As for the National Rifle Association’s call to place armed guards in all schools, Obama dismissed the idea.
“I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools,” he said. “And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”
Public opinion on the issue, he added, is on the side of taking action.
“The question then becomes whether we are actually shook up enough by what happened here that it does not become another one of those routine episodes where it gets a lot of attention for a couple of weeks and then it drifts away,” Obama said.
“It certainly won’t feel like that to me. This is something that, you know, was the worst day of my presidency. And it’s not something I want to see repeated.”
He also listed immigration reform as a chief goal of his second term.
“I’ve said that fixing our broken immigration system is a top priority,” the president said.
“I will introduce legislation the first year to get that done. We’ve talked about it long enough.
“We know we can fix it,” he added. “We can do it in a comprehensive way that the American people support. That’s something we should get done.”