Barack Obama Quotes

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.

My biggest frustration so far is the fact that this society has not been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do just unbelievable damage. We're the only developed country on Earth where this happens. ... And it happens once a week. And it's a one-day story. ... The country has to do some soul-searching on this.

More guns are not the answer to keeping our kids and our communities safer.

While different states and cities might look to different strategies for protecting public safety, we all can agree on this: we lose too many American lives to gun violence.

We have to change the culture of mass violence we have.

I don't think there should be more gun control. I think there should be more education.

When politicians send their thoughts and prayers with no action, we say, 'No more.'

The Second Amendment is very important, but we have to have commonsense gun safety.

What is it about this ideological dream of the right to bear arms that overrides any other rights, I mean the rights to not have your children killed at school?

I believe what I call common sense gun reform. Plus, a revolution in mental health, making sure that if people are having a nervous breakdown, or are suicidal, or homicidal, they get the care they need when they need it. I think the vast majority of the American people can support and agenda composed of those features.

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.

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.

I'd really rather that nobody had a gun, and then nobody would have to worry about it. That would be more my theory. In America, there's this knee-jerk response that more walls and more guns make people safer, and I'm entirely suspect of that way of thinking.

If you think of all the publicity about the terrible tragedy of Virginia Tech, we have a Virginia Tech in this country every day. It's just spread across 50 states.

If gun control bore any relation to homicide rates, Washington, DC would be the safest place in the country.

We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We're going to beat guns into submission!

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

Every American has the right to feel safe in their schools, in their churches, in their movie theaters, and in their nightclubs.

The urban barbarism that has turned our streets into battlegrounds and our classrooms into killing fields will not be stopped by an assault on the Second Amendment right of American gunowners to keep and bear arms.

Banning guns is an idea whose time has come.

I think the fact that we allow guns in our country is the main problem with school shootings.

As a former District Attorney and Attorney General, I know the urgency of providing safe homes, schools and neighborhoods for all. This remarkable tour-de-force is a powerful study of one promising solution: a data-rich, eminently readable demonstration of why we should treat gun violence as an American epidemic.

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.

Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost 5,000 dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollar, we wouldn't have any innocent bystanders.

I've come to the conclusion that military style weapons really don't have any place in our society. We ought to reinstate the assault weapons ban that served us well for 10 years from 1994 to 2004.