President Obama addressed the nation on Sunday afternoon for the 20th time in his tenure at the White House to discuss the horrific outcome of yet another mass shooting. A gunman opened fire in a popular Orlando gay club on early Sunday morning, killing at least 50 people and injuring several more. The tragic event was the deadliest mass shooting in America to date.
When speaking to the American public, Obama discussed how the event happened.
“The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle,” Obama said.
The mass shooting, the president said, is yet another reminder of “how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.”
Obama said America must decide if “that’s the kind of country we want to be,” and noted that actively doing nothing is also a decision.
In the wake of the tragic event in Orlando, some members of Congress are pushing for stricter gun control.
Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy criticized his colleagues for their “unconscionable deafening silence” on gun regulations.
In a statement on Sunday, Murphy called on America’s leaders to make changes to prevent another community having to suffer the same fate as Orlando, San Bernardino, Newton, Aurora and Oregon.
Many Republicans, on the other hand, are focused not on gun control, but on radical Islamic terrorism, despite the fact that the majority of mass shootings in America were not carried out by ISIS.
