Obama: Gun Reforms Needed to Prevent Child Deaths
President Barack Obama said Thursday that the beliefs of U.S. gun owners should be respected, but warned measures must be taken to ensure hundreds or thousands more children are not shot and killed.
Obama, speaking to a conference of House of Representatives Democrats, pledged to keep campaigning for a package of measures designed to stem gun violence which were drawn up after the Newtown school massacre last year.
He said he recognized the political complications of the guns debate, which often sets rural pro-hunting areas of the United States against inner cities, but said something needed to be done.
"There are regional differences ... and we should respect those. Guns mean something different for somebody who grew up in a farm in a rural community, (and) somebody who grew up in an inner city,"Obama said.
"The majority of responsible gun owners recognize we cannot have a situation in which 20 more of our children, or a hundred more of our children, or 1000 more of our children are shot and killed in a senseless fashion."
Separately, the White House said that First Lady Michelle Obama would attend the funeral of 15-year-old schoolgirl Hadiya Pendleton on Saturday in Chicago.
Pendleton was at Obama's inauguration in Washington on January 21 with her majorette troupe, but was shot dead in a Chicago park just over a week later, when her group of friends was mistaken for gang members.
Obama's hopes of enacting serious gun control measures are hanging in the balance in Congress.
Efforts on tightening background checks for gun owners appear to be gathering pace, and some sources close to the debate detect momentum behind the idea of reducing the size of lethal high capacity magazine clips.
But hopes for a renewal of a ban on new assault weapons are fading owing to staunch Republican opposition and the plight of moderate Senate Democrats facing re-election battles next year in pro-gun states.
Recent polls show rising support for efforts to tighten laws, including a renewal of the assault weapons ban and measures to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable.
But gun politics remain treacherous. The slate of Democratic-held Senate seats up for grabs in mid-term elections in 2014 contains several where a vote for gun control could be damaging.
Some House members being addressed by Obama on Thursday may also be wary of a vote that could be held against them as they also face re-election next year.
Source: Agence France Presse
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