Barack Obama Quotes

Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. But that's unacceptable. As others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn't 'too soon.' It's much too late.

I don't get debate agains guns at all. Because we have it after every mass shooting. And now a terror attack. And the proposals that are talked about almost always have nothing to do with this specific event.

Our tears are not enough. Our words and our prayers are not enough. If we really want to honor these twelve men and women, if we really want to be a country where we can go to work and go to school and walk our streets free from senseless violence, without so many lives being stolen by a bullet from a gun, then we're gonna have to change. We're gonna have to change.

The most frustrated and most stymied it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws. Even in the face of repeated mass killings.

We need to do something about gun violence in America. But every time one of these things happen, we say the same thing, and then we don't seem to be able to do anything. And that needs to change.

Why does a tragedy like 9/11 change everything about air travel, but numerous gun massacres CHANGE NOTHING?

I think we have two conflicting traditions in this country. I think it's important for us to recognize that we've got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of people - law-abiding citizens use if for hunting, for sportsmanship, and for protecting their families. We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets.

The fact that we're living in a country where 90 percent of the people want further gun laws - to maybe somehow put a dent in some of this insanity that's happening - and yet there's no further legislation taking place, it's very frustrating and upsetting.

Arguments that we will never stop all shootings by restricting access to such weapons fails to account for our strong and common desire at least to stop many of them - or any of them.

Even though New York is the safest big city in the nation, there are still far too many illegal guns on our streets. Nearly all of them arrive from out of state - and most are sold by a small group of rogue gun dealers who refuse to obey federal laws.

Well, I would love it if they could take all the guns away. Unfortunately, you can't do that so you hope that good people in the world have them to protect the people who can't protect themselves.

We have to be concerned about the gun killing that people who are Americans, who are Irish, and who are English, who are all around the country.

Right now - and this is something Donald [Trump] has supported, along with the gun lobby - right now, we've got too many military- style weapons on the streets. In a lot of places, our police are outgunned. We need comprehensive background checks, and we need to keep guns out of the hands of those who will do harm.

I kind of think we have too many guns in this country.

I am totally for gun control in the U.S. The population of America is roughly 300 million and there are 300 million guns in this country, which is terrifying. Every day we're seeing some kid running rampant in a school. And do you know what the gun lobby's response to Newtown was? The National Rifle Association's official response was, 'If that teacher had been armed' It's crazy.

I get it. You have the right to have guns. But look, let's forget that right. Let's forget the pleasure you get safely on your range, because it's in the wrong hands in other places.

If you look at Paris, they didn't have guns and they were slaughtered. If you look at what happened in California, they didn't have guns, they were slaughtered. They could've protected themselves if they had guns.

There are no free and democratic and wealthy countries in the world that have US rate of gun violence. We have to worry about loners and alienated people. We have to do better on mental health.

I came to Ottawa with the firm belief that the only people in this country who should have guns are police officers and soldiers.

This massacre in Orlando is therefore a further 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. And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision, as well.

I would like to save lives. Now you know, the gun lobby will say, "You can't stop everybody." And I would agree with that: You can't stop everybody. Isn't it worth stopping as many as possible, saving as many lives as we can? And I think comprehensive background checks and trying to keep guns outta the wrong hands would help us do that.

What is wrong with keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people?

We Americans are not an inherently more violent people than folks in other countries. We're not inherently more prone to mental health problems. The main difference that sets our nation apart is what makes us so susceptible to so many mass shootings is that we don't do enough, we don't take the basic commonsense actions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. What's different in America is it's easy to get your hands on a gun.

Because you won't get gun control by disarming law abiding citizens. There's only one way to get real gun control: Disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up, and if you don't actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time.

What I would like to see is for people to come together and say: Of course we're going to protect and defend the Second Amendment. But we're going to do it in a way that tries to save some of these 33,000 lives that we lose every year.