Obama wants gun violence measures passed in 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) - Recalling the shooting rampage that killed 20 first graders as the worst day of his presidency, President Barack Obama on Sunday pledged to put his "full weight" behind legislation aimed at preventing gun violence.
In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama voiced skepticism about the National Rifle Association's proposal to put armed guards in schools following the Dec. 14 tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Instead, the president vowed to rally the American people around an agenda to limit gun violence, adding that he still supports increased background checks and bans on assault weapons and high capacity bullet magazines. He left no doubt it will be one of his top priorities next year.
"It is not enough for us to say, 'This is too hard so we're not going to try,'" Obama said.
"I think there are a vast majority 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 kind of high capacity weapons that this individual in Newtown obtained and gun down our kids," he added. "And, yes, it's going to be hard."
The president added that he's ready to meet with Republicans and Democrats, anyone with a stake in the issue.
The schoolhouse shootings, coming as families prepared for the holidays, have elevated the issue of gun violence to the forefront of public attention. Six adult staff members were also killed at the elementary school. Shooter Adam Lanza committed suicide, apparently as police closed in. Earlier, he had killed his mother at the home they shared.
The tragedy immediately prompted calls for greater gun controls. But the NRA is strongly resisting those efforts, arguing instead that schools should have armed guards for protection. Some gun enthusiasts have rushed to buy semiautomatic rifles of the type used by Lanza, fearing sales may soon be restricted.
Obama seemed unimpressed by the NRA proposal. "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."
The president said he intends to press the issue with the public.
"The question then becomes whether we are actually shook up enough by what happened here that it does not just become another one of these 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, that was the worst day of my presidency. And it's not something that I want to see repeated."
Separately, a member of the president's cabinet said Sunday that rural America may be ready to join a national conversation about gun control. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the debate has to start with respect for the Second Amendment right to bear arms and a recognition that hunting is a way of life for millions of Americans.
But Vilsack said Newtown has changed the way people see the issue. "I really believe that this is a different circumstance and a different situation and I think the president believes it as well, that this is going to be sustained convention," Vilsack said on CNN.
Vilsack said he thinks it's possible for Americans to come together. "It's potentially a unifying conversation," he said. "The problem is that these conversations are always couched in the terms of dividing us. This could be a unifying conversation and Lord knows we need to be unified."
Besides passing gun violence legislation, Obama also listed deficit reduction and immigration as top priorities for 2013. A big deficit reduction deal with Republicans proved elusive this month and Obama is now hoping Senate Democratic and Republican leaders salvage a scaled back plan that avoids tax increases for virtually all Americans.
In addition, he issued a defense of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who has been mentioned as one of the leading candidates to replace Leon Panetta as secretary of defense.
Hagel, who opposed President George W. Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq, has been criticized in conservative circles for not being a strong enough ally of Israel. Also, many liberals and gay activists have banded against him for comments he made in 1998 about an openly gay nominee for an ambassadorship
Obama, who briefly served with Hagel in the Senate, stressed that he had yet to make a decision but called Hagel a "patriot."
Hagel "served this country with valor in Vietnam," the president said. "And (he) is somebody who's currently serving on my intelligence advisory board and doing an outstanding job."
Obama noted that Hagel had apologized for his 14-year-old remark on gays.
In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama voiced skepticism about the National Rifle Association's proposal to put armed guards in schools following the Dec. 14 tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Instead, the president vowed to rally the American people around an agenda to limit gun violence, adding that he still supports increased background checks and bans on assault weapons and high capacity bullet magazines. He left no doubt it will be one of his top priorities next year.
"It is not enough for us to say, 'This is too hard so we're not going to try,'" Obama said.
"I think there are a vast majority 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 kind of high capacity weapons that this individual in Newtown obtained and gun down our kids," he added. "And, yes, it's going to be hard."
The president added that he's ready to meet with Republicans and Democrats, anyone with a stake in the issue.
The schoolhouse shootings, coming as families prepared for the holidays, have elevated the issue of gun violence to the forefront of public attention. Six adult staff members were also killed at the elementary school. Shooter Adam Lanza committed suicide, apparently as police closed in. Earlier, he had killed his mother at the home they shared.
The tragedy immediately prompted calls for greater gun controls. But the NRA is strongly resisting those efforts, arguing instead that schools should have armed guards for protection. Some gun enthusiasts have rushed to buy semiautomatic rifles of the type used by Lanza, fearing sales may soon be restricted.
Obama seemed unimpressed by the NRA proposal. "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."
The president said he intends to press the issue with the public.
"The question then becomes whether we are actually shook up enough by what happened here that it does not just become another one of these 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, that was the worst day of my presidency. And it's not something that I want to see repeated."
Separately, a member of the president's cabinet said Sunday that rural America may be ready to join a national conversation about gun control. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the debate has to start with respect for the Second Amendment right to bear arms and a recognition that hunting is a way of life for millions of Americans.
But Vilsack said Newtown has changed the way people see the issue. "I really believe that this is a different circumstance and a different situation and I think the president believes it as well, that this is going to be sustained convention," Vilsack said on CNN.
Vilsack said he thinks it's possible for Americans to come together. "It's potentially a unifying conversation," he said. "The problem is that these conversations are always couched in the terms of dividing us. This could be a unifying conversation and Lord knows we need to be unified."
Besides passing gun violence legislation, Obama also listed deficit reduction and immigration as top priorities for 2013. A big deficit reduction deal with Republicans proved elusive this month and Obama is now hoping Senate Democratic and Republican leaders salvage a scaled back plan that avoids tax increases for virtually all Americans.
In addition, he issued a defense of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who has been mentioned as one of the leading candidates to replace Leon Panetta as secretary of defense.
Hagel, who opposed President George W. Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq, has been criticized in conservative circles for not being a strong enough ally of Israel. Also, many liberals and gay activists have banded against him for comments he made in 1998 about an openly gay nominee for an ambassadorship
Obama, who briefly served with Hagel in the Senate, stressed that he had yet to make a decision but called Hagel a "patriot."
Hagel "served this country with valor in Vietnam," the president said. "And (he) is somebody who's currently serving on my intelligence advisory board and doing an outstanding job."
Obama noted that Hagel had apologized for his 14-year-old remark on gays.
It is only the ignorant and the imbeciles that believe making more laws will slow down or stop crime!
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Criminals and mental cases don't care about laws. They break laws now! Why would anyone think that making more laws will have any effect? That is just being plain ignorant!
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If you really want the laws to have the effect, pass a federal law that demands the death penalty for anyone that is found guilty of using a firearm to commit a crime! Make it mandatory that the penalty be carried out within 30 days of the conviction! And make it mandatory that all states must carry out the death penalty regardless of how the governor feels about it. The crimes with firearms will reduce by attrition alone if nothing else.
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Something else: All you hear is the liberal Hollywood stars calling for gun control, yet they themselves propagate the use of weapons by constantly staring in shoot 'em up, bang bang, violent movies, all for making a buck. A bunch of damned hypocrites.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxRlpRcorEU
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 @Fed up Fed  @scoreboard There you go, putting words in my mouth. I'm not undercutting anything. I'm just showing how hypocritical Hollywood is not only on this, but on many other things. Get a clue.
 @Fed up Fed  @B DERP? That's a real intelligent response, but then again I wouldn't expect much more from you. What you failed to include in your response is that fact that I called them a bunch of hypocrites. You obviously left that out for your own agenda.
 @B Smizzle  @Fed up Fed Thank you! Obviously Fed is trying to change the subject. My point is the Hollywood hypocrisy, along with the hypocrisy of our current administration. Nothing more. Obviously Mr. Fed here is trying to read something into this that isn't there.
 @Fed up Fed  @scoreboard You are changing the subject....what he is saying is that people in a position to influence others say guns are not good and we need to get rid of them, while at the same time protecting themselves and their children with guns!
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You seem to dislike guns so you must agree, Obama should outlaw anyone who protects him from using or carrying a gun!  Likewise, the capitol buildings and all federal buildings should be "gun free" zones.  Why doesn't the government SET the example?  Oh yeah, and David Gregory from Meet the Press, before you savage La Pierre and his idea to have armed guards at schools, why don't you point out that your kids go to a private school guarded by 11 armed security guards.....just curious?
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Go ahead, change the subject....you silence speaks volume!
The gun right won't even come to the table under any circumstance and this is what I find frustrating. The base seems to be built on fear and paranoia, the "right to defend against tyrannical governments", hogwash considering they were referring to England at the time.
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Nothing wrong with closing loopholes, nothing wrong with increasing background checks, or waiting periods, or even limiting magazine sizes and access to certain weapons. The sad part is, the majority of times a gun is used is in a crime, I expect the least would be self defense. (and no, I don't have time to dig up stats). Looking at access to guns is only part of the solution as all possible contributing factors should be examined, violence on TV, games, access to mental health, it ALL should be on the table but as usual, the extreme right doesn't even want to talk about it and instead promotes even MORE guns....it defies logic.
 @deejm2112 I'll give you a 'like' for the content of your post, but you're missing one side of the absurdity;
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>'Â the extreme right doesn't even want to talk about it and instead promotes even MORE guns....it defies logic.'
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and the extreme left would just as soon suspend the 2nd amendment, or at the very least put an asterisk next to it.
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...I mean, if we're only focusing on the extremes here, let's be fair. For every David Keene out there, there's also a Nelson Shields.
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I find that most people (again, the silent majority) are in favor of some changes in current gun laws. Most notably, things like requiring gun shows to abide by the same purchasing requirements as gun stores. The problem is that the media, as in so many socially divisive or incendiary topics, only quotes the extremists in headlines. It fans the flames, and generates revenue. Furthermore, there is a large swath of Americans who, rather than consider a topic on it's merits, look to 'leaders' to tell them what to think.Â
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Common sense is no longer all that common.Â
On a COMPLETELY unrelated topic...Would anyone happen to know why I am not accumulating any points? ...I don't suck THAT bad.
 @mikeyb123 ~  I'm not sure about the technical aspects, but I did notice a while back that when I commented for the first time on a particular story, it would show "0" points.   Then if I left that story for a different one (or left the KATU site for a while), and then returned to the story later on, the points would show the actual "accumulated...  It does't always work out that way, but usually it does... Â
You can always check your "point count" if you want to, by clicking on your avatar, then when the "quick profile" comes up, click on "full profile"... Â there's more info there... Â :-)
 @mikeyb123 An interesting thing I discovered is that they can make your comments invisible to the forum, except to yourself. So, I suppose, if you're spamming them with troll comments, you won't realize that nobody is seeing them.
Sure hope that's not the case. I have def. no been "spamming"
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 @Fed up Fed Gave ya one more! :-)I have had many email notifications (by many, I mean like, 3) of likes...so apparently mine is just a big fail. I guess I will have to measure my self worth from Facebook likes...
 @mikeyb123 no...it says 32...mine says 0 as well, click your profile and it'll list points on your avatar....mine says 1442 (I think I need to spend more time working and less time here...yikes)
 @Fed up Fed OH! Well, is it possible that you can update me daily on my points status? :-)
 @deejm2112 HAHA! Thanks for the try! Still says "0". *tear.
 @mikeyb123  A couple of Likes for you....
"Insert political comment, here."
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/12/30/armed-teachers-guards-key-to-school-security-in-israel/?test=latestnews
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Israel has common sense.
 @RalphCramden Yes it does.
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-dismisses-us-gun-lobbys-inaccurate-claim-about-gun-laws/
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/mythbusting-israel-and-switzerland-are-not-gun-toting-utopias/
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The second article has some interesting facts:
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- "...Israel rejects 40 percent of its applications for a gun, the highest rate of rejection of any country in the world."
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- "In Israel, it used to be that all soldiers would take the guns home with them. Now they have to leave them on base. Over the years theyâve done this â it began, I think, in 2006 â thereâs been a 60 percent decrease in suicide on weekends among IDS soldiers. And it did not correspond to an increase in weekday suicide. People think suicide is an impulse that exists and builds. This shows that doesnât happen. The impulse to suicide is transitory. Someone with access to a gun at that moment may commit suicide, but if not, they may not."
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 @Max QuinnÂ
I agree that some suicides in an impulse event. There is speculation that many of the single car crashes into a fixed object is a impulse suicide. Also some bridge jumps are the same way. Especially when there is no note and friends and family are totally surprised.
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The way I look at it, if someone wants to end their life then so be it. I have had friends who were miserable and wanted out of life. They had tried everything and nothing worked. For them life was constant torture and when they killed themselves it was there way of stopping the pain.
 @Max QuinnÂ
It is hard.
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I knew a cop who out of the blue put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The problem was he lived. And not very well. He still wants to die but now he can't function enough to make that happen.
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So here he is, hating his life, suffering every day, and those in control of his life are forcing him to live.
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There isn't an easy answer to any of this.
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My wife and I have an agreement that if either one of us becomes severely incapacitated the surviving one would make sure that we don't survive long in that state. I look at my wife and tell her that I don't know if I could do that. She just tells me to leave her gun next to her bed and walk away.
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Thankfully I have not been presented with that situation and hope I never have to do it.
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But I am a strong supporter of those who want to die even if they are not terminal. I say let them do whatever they want to. It is their live and it is their decision.
 @RalphCramden I've always thought that if given a second chance to make the decision, most people who commit suicide wouldn't do it. No way of knowing, though. It's a hard thing to witness a decline like that.
 @Max Quinn You're one of the few voices of reason here Max!
 @deejm2112 That'll end when I start celebrating the new year...
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 @Fed up Fed  @RalphCramden Maybe the Mayans were off by ten days...
 @RalphCramden You DO realize there's a difference between being Israel, surrounded by entire nations of enemies, vs the US, dealing with a few domestic terrorists trying to make a name for themselves before firing their own gun into their own head, right?  It's not just a difference, it's a HUGE difference.  If all our mass shooters were coming over from Canada and it had been going on for decades, I could see a correlation.  But Israel's circumstances are nothing like ours.
 @Sundowner  @RalphCramden As a 2nd Amendment advocate, I'm going to acknowledge that this is a good point. We're a different world.
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But... my grandfather patrolled Reynolds and Gresham high school as an armed officer. John Bunnell from COPS patrolled high schools in east Multnomah County, as did Bob Skipper, and the dads of my schoolmates who were on the police force. This was in the '60s and early '70s, when the schools were relatively new. I was told by a former local mayor that the regular deputies and the reserves used to do this all the time until funding for the programs was canceled.
 @Playanekes  @RalphCramden Ta da!!  Funding for LE needs to be examined, as well as funding to keep people in prisons.  I'd like to see tons of funding to put enough LE out there to serve search warrants on known felons, gangbangers, thugs, in order to confiscate their illegal weapons.  Very time-consuming, very costly, but LE knows who and where they are.  Right now there's zero funding available for them to perform proactive work that might help.
 @Sundowner  @RalphCramden That is very true  but a shooting like this will never happen in Isreal ands considering that Oregon allows concealed firearms in on school grounds  and  there has not been a shooting like this in Oregon since 1998 , the track record is there that only a good guy with a gun will stop a determined bad guy with a gun.
@Fed up Fed Actually a quote from a recent article in the Russian newspaper Pravda.
 @RalphCramden Don't be fooled by a belief progressives and leftist hate guns, oh no they do not! What they hate are those that are not marching in lock step of their ideology! They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate those that have guns whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear!
We Must Stand As One!
Oh, good. President Obama is going 'to put his "full weight" behind legislation aimed at preventing gun violence.'
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Which, if history is any example, unless he has a pet Congress composed of rubber-stamping party members, means absolutely nothing of substance will come to pass....
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...unless, of course, it's filled with wasteful spending and/or paybacks for campaign contributions. Those are ideas that both parties can get behind. Tit for tat, don'cha know?
 @MarkKpic ~  Not sure that Obama fully comprehends the long road that lies between "legislating" and "successfully implementing"... IOW, Congress and/or the president (via one of his infamous "executive orders") can "legislate" all they want to... but criminals and the mentally ill / unstable are going to keep right on doing what they're doing now... they'll buy guns / ammo on the black market or they'll steal them...
What do they think, that the criminals are all going to run down and turn in all their guns and ammo just because the gov't passed some new law? Â Â It should be abundantly clear to anyone that criminals are CALLED "criminals" because they refuse to adhere to laws.. and the mentally ill just do not think in the same way as do rational, mentally stable people.Â
Unless they also work on the other issues that are tied to violent crime (whether by guns or otherwise), eg: mental health, sentencing for crimes, drug/alcohol addiction, and so on, any "legislation" they pass will be nothing more than a "feel-good" effort....treating a symptom, instead of the disease. Â Â
We need to think outside the box on this one...and I don't think our politicians are capable of that...
 @margay1 True, true.
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We do live in a society that loves a good security blanket. Rather than do comprehensive work to solve not just symptoms, but actually address all components of a series of very complex problems, very little will change. Everybody wants a knee-jerk, feel good solution that actually accomplishes very little. It's symptomatic of  what I like to refer to as the 'pill' mentality. People want a 'pill' to solve all their problems and worries. Mainly because comprehensively examining the problem might just result in finding out that we are ALL part of that problem. But, instead, it's 'the guns'. Gotta be 'the guns'. We'll pass some laws, and deride and berate anyone who owns one. Publish their names on the internet so they can be publicly shamed. The Scarlett letter of the 22nd century.Â
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Then, everybody can feel all snuggly and safe for a year or two....
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...until the next pariah du jour comes along.Â
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>'I don't think our politicians are capable of that'
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You're being more generous that I would. I don't think that most people are capable of that.Â
 @margay1 >'There will not be any "instant, easy fixes" to this...it's complicated, and multi-leveled, and it will take time, a lot of hard work, and a LOT of money; money that will have to come from somewhere.'
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My rational self would say 'why must it take a LOT of money', but my realistic self answers 'it's a government operation'. More than likely, it's going to involve a government commission of some sort, a couple of congressional panels and more than one government-sponsored studies... which will inevitably cost a LOT of money (and, inevitably, come up with no tangible solutions).
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>'I think perhaps it is time that we stopped trying to support and police the rest of the world, and focused on our people and issues here at home. '
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You speak with the wisdom of Job. When we give (current 2012 estimates) 3.1 billion to Israel, 2 billion to Egypt, 1.5 billion to Pakistan.... Perhaps, just perhaps, it's worth considering a re-evaluation of our priorities. I think Israel could get by on a billion or so less, and giving 1.5 billion to a country that knowingly harbored Osama Bin Laden, and to this day still offers safe harbor to terrorists who target US military supply lines?
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Yeah... Lets just say that I'd be a LOT more inclined to see what good that money could do domestically instead of borrowing more from China to give it away. From schools to infrastructure to social service programs, there's plenty of worthy causes right here that I'm more willing to run up the national debt over....
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Of course, that's assuming that it's an either/or situation. If there's one thing that the current administration has proven (not that GW was any better {Iraq war}), it's that we can give all this borrowed money away and still borrow more to pay for domestic programs. Â
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 @MarkKpic ~  "Pill mentality" - I LIKE that one; haven't heard it before, but it's GOOD..!   (Of course, it hasn't been all that difficult to reach the "pill mentality", with Big Pharma pushing their wares on us every 2 minutes on TV, but that's for another thread...)  Â
You may well be correct in your belief that most people (even aside from the politicians) are not capable of dealing with these issues as they must be dealt with... Â There will not be any "instant, easy fixes" to this...it's complicated, and multi-leveled, and it will take time, a lot of hard work, and a LOT of money; money that will have to come from somewhere.
I think perhaps it is time that we stopped trying to support and police the rest of the world, and focused on our people and issues here at home. Â Â If we stay on the present course, we will soon be of no benefit to anyone, least of all, to ourselves. Â Â
I am now so sick and tired of the republicans I will go along with gun control.
 @special effects Your logic is f----d.  Screw the Constitution if it doesn't favor your party, is that how it goes?
 @special effects ...because President Obamas daughters are protected in school by Secret Service agents carrying puppy fart mace and sunshine beams.Â
 @MarkKpic  @special effects Listen, Mark. The founding fathers had NO IDEA what life would be like in America today and did not conceive of the sort of firepower we have now.
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Which is why the Secret Service and all the guards at the federal buildings should be armed with muskets.
 @Playanekes  @special effects I get the sarcasm of your statement, but there's ample discussion to be had over the intent of the 2nd ammendment, and how that should be applied to todays availible arsenal of weapondry.Â
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My reply to special effects it to refute the ubsurdity that one party or the other has some moral superiority when it comes to guns, or gun control legislation.Â
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http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000082
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While it would be fair to say that the majority of the 'free speech' that the NRA and like organizations have spent has gone towards R (read:'conservative'), it's by no means exclusive. For example, Oregons own Kurt Schrader received some $$ from them last cycle. But, that doesn't jive with the socio-political agenda that such posters are angling for, so it get's overlooked.Â
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Yeah because everyone knows Democrats dont use guns. Bahahahahaa.. thanks for the laugh!