Obama blames gun lobby 'grip' on Congress for lax U.S. gun laws

[June 22, 2015]  By Roberta Rampton
 
 RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (Reuters) - President Barack Obama blamed public apathy combined with the tight "grip" on Congress of the National Rifle Association, the powerful U.S. gun lobby, for blocking stricter gun laws.

Speaking during an interview recorded on Friday, just two days after the mass shooting at a black church in South Carolina, Obama said he did not foresee any quick changes to gun laws.

"Unfortunately, the grip of the NRA on Congress is extremely strong," Obama said in a clip of the interview with "WTF with Marc Maron" posted by the New York Times.

It was not the first time Obama has railed against the NRA. After the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre in 2012, a tragedy that Obama has called his toughest time in office, he pushed for changes to gun laws.

He proposed more background checks for gun sales and pushed to ban more types of military-style assault weapons and limit the capacity of ammunition magazines.

But he failed to convince enough lawmakers to support the restrictions.

"I don't foresee any legislative action being taken in this Congress. And I don't foresee any real action being taken until the American public feels a sufficient sense of urgency and they say to themselves, 'This is not normal, this is something that we can change, and we're going to change it,'" he said in the interview with Maron.

The interview marks the fifth time in two days that Obama spoke publicly about his frustrations with gun laws. He addressed the issue in Washington before traveling to California, where he brought it up at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and at two fundraisers for the Democratic Party.

Obama, who is spending the weekend golfing in the Palm Springs area with friends, took to Twitter on Saturday to vent.

"Here are the stats: per population, we kill each other with guns at a rate 297x more than Japan, 49x more than France, 33x more than Israel," Obama said on Twitter.

The U.S. constitution protects the right to own guns. Obama acknowledged in the interview that guns are an important part of many Americans' heritage.

"The question is just: is there a way of accommodating that legitimate set of traditions with some common-sense stuff that prevents a 21-year-old who is angry about something or confused about something or is racist or is deranged from going into a gun store," Obama said in the interview.

"That is not something that we have ever fully come to terms with," he said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by David Gregorio)

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