While running for president in 2008, Barack Obama talked a big game about gun control.
During debates with his Democratic opponents that year, Obama said that he would help law enforcement agencies trace guns used in crimes back to “unscrupulous dealers,” and that he could “make sure” that criminals and the mentally ill didn’t get ahold of automatic weapons so easily. He said all we had to do was “get beyond the politics.” He called those measures “common sense.”
Now, five years later, Obama is making the same eloquent promises. Meanwhile, his administration has accomplished next to nothing on gun regulation. In 2009 and 2010, the U.S. actually increased the number of places gun owners could bring their weapons (into national parks and aboard Amtrak trains.)
And even after the mass shootings in Fort Hood, Texas, Tucson, Ariz., Aurora, Colo. and most recently in Newtown, Conn., even after two pro-gun senators pushed for action on gun control, and even after a petition on the White House’s website neared 200,000 signatures, the Obama administration still won’t say what it plans to do to regulate access to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which many see as the most basic forms of gun control.
Watch our video (above) to see a short mashup of Obama’s most significant remarks on gun control since he ran for president in 2008. Leave a comment below to let us know your thoughts about Obama and gun regulation in America.
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