WASHINGTON – President Obama vowed on Sunday that tougher gun laws “will happen,” as he consoled families of victims from the deadly shooting spree last week at the Washington Navy Yard.
“What troubles us so deeply as we gather here today is how this senseless violence … echoes other recent tragedies,” Obama said at a memorial service at the historic Marine Barracks, just three blocks from the Navy Yard.
Obama said the spate of mass shooting, including the rampage by crazed former sailor Aaron Alexis that left 12 people dead at the Navy Yard, “occur against a backdrop of daily tragedies, as an epidemic of gun violence tears apart communities across America.”
“What’s different in America is that it’s easy to get your hands on a gun,” he said, noting America’s high murder rate compared to other developed countries.
The president made new gun laws a top priority after the horrific elementary school shooting last year in Newtown, Conn. The effort died in Congress.
Lawmakers who support new gun laws have already pronounced the effort dead on arrival in Congress.
Obama lamented the “sense that our politics are frozen and nothing will change.”
“I cannot accept that,” declared Obama.
“By now it should be clear that the change we need will not come from Washington,” he said. “The change will come the only way it ever has come, and that’s from the American people.”