President Barack Obama will not push for stricter gun laws this election year, the White House said Thursday, one day after his impassioned remarks about the need to keep assault weapons off the streets suggested he may plunge into that political fight and challenge Congress to act.
Instead, Obama’s stand on the government’s role ended up right where it was after the mass shooting in Colorado last week: Enforce existing law better.
That is same view held by his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, as both reach for broader and more politically appealing ways to keep guns away from killers. The Associated Press
“I think that the effort to continue to look for some law to somehow make violence go away is missing the point. The real point has to relate to individuals that are deranged and distressed, and to find them and help them and to keep them from carrying out terrible acts.”
Mitt Romney, on CNN
“A lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals — that they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities.”
President Barack Obama, to the National Urban League conference in New Orleans
