Obama’s emotional address, made from the East Room of the White House on Tuesday, was the latest in a series of attempts to make gun regulations stricter, this time without the help of Congress.
“Every year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns,” Obama said. The US is not inherently more prone to violence than anywhere else in the world, but the advanced nation where gun violence is most frequent, he noted.
“This is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns,” Obama said, to applause from the audience.
The president was introduced by Mark Barden, the father of a shooting victim at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Obama also referred to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived a shooting in Arizona five years ago this week and was in attendance.
The action will also mandate the hiring of more FBI personnel for the agency’s background check system, so the government can process background checks “24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” To enforce the new rules, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Arms and Explosives (ATF) will get 200 more agents.
Technology should be developed to make guns safer, the president argued, including child-proofing and digital locks.
« If we can’t unlock our phone without having the right fingerprint, why can’t we do the same for guns? »Obama said.
The president teared up as he brought up the first-graders killed in Newtown and urged Americans to « stand up to the gun lobby’s lies. »
Obama, however, is trying his best to sell the measure to the American people. In addition to creating a “fact sheet” about the executive action on the White House website, he is set to join Anderson Cooper on CNN in an hour-long town hall on gun control this Thursday.