Another mass shooting, another call from President Obama for lawmakers to modify gun control laws. Monday's mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, in which 13 people were killed, has once again put Obama on the counteroffensive.
The Washington Post reports that in an interview with Telemundo, the president spoke about more rigorous background checks.
Obama said the country's background check system for gun buyers is so weak it makes the United States vulnerable to mass shootings, such as the one last December that killed 26 small children at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. "You know, I do get concerned that this becomes a ritual that we go through every three, four months, where we have these horrific mass shootings," Obama said in the interview. "Everybody expresses understandable horror. We all embrace the families — and obviously our thoughts and prayers are with those families right now as they're absorbing this incredible loss. And yet we're not willing to take some basic actions."
Aaron Alexis, the 34-year-old deceased shooter, legally bought the gun he used in the attack in Lorton, Va., according to the Wall Street Journal. New York's Daily News says that Davis has a past that includes incidents such as telling a Rhode Island cop he was hearing voices and shooting out the tires of a construction worker's car in Seattle.
President Obama made a similar call to Congress in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which took place last December. But Senate Republicans and Democrats blocked the proposal for tighter background checks in April.
Jozen Cummings is the author and creator of the popular relationship blog Until I Get Married, which is currently in development for a television series with Warner Bros. He also hosts a weekly podcast with WNYC about Empire called Empire Afterparty, is a contributor at VerySmartBrothas.com and works at Twitter as an editorial curator. Follow him on Twitter.