White House Offers No Details on Gun Control Efforts
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Comstock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The day after President Obama pledged to “use whatever power this office holds” to prevent future tragedies like the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the White House offered few details on how he plans to halt gun violence.
“It’s a complex problem that will require a complex solution. No single piece of legislation, no single action will fully address the problem,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters. “I don’t have a specific agenda to announce to you today. I would simply point you to what the president said last night about moving forward in coming weeks. And I would look for him to do that.”
“We can’t tolerate this anymore,” Obama said Sunday at a vigil for families of the victims of Friday’s deadly shooting. “These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this.”
The President continues to support reinstating the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004, but Carney offered no outline of a proposal or timeline going forward.
“I think that what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School has clearly shocked the entire nation and has laid bare the necessity of evaluating the various things that we can and must do as a nation to try to better protect our children,” he said.
Carney reminded reporters that the president “didn’t talk about months or years. He said ‘coming weeks.’”
While addressing gun violence is part of the solution, Carney stressed that it is far from all of it. “It’s important to remember that this is about our gun laws and enforcing them, but it’s also about a broader series of issues, including issues of mental health and education and the like,” he said.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio