In his weekly address to the nation, President Obama marked the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Conn., by renewing calls for gun control.
Speaking about the tragedy he said that “beneath the sadness, we also felt a sense of resolve—that these tragedies must end, and that to end them, we must change.”
He continued: “We haven’t yet done enough to make our communities and our country safer. We have to do more to keep dangerous people from getting their hands on a gun so easily. We have to do more to heal troubled minds.”
But since major gun legislation went nowhere in the Democrat-controlled Senate this year, Obama instead called on the American people for help.
"We can’t lose sight of the fact that real change won’t come from Washington. It will come the way it’s always come – from you. From the American people,” he said.
In closing, Obama admitted that it would be impossible to stop every act of violence. “But if we want to live in a country where we can go to work, send our kids to school, and walk our streets free from fear," he said, "we have to keep trying.”
Gun rights advocates have argued that rather than imposing new laws, the Obama administration ought to do more to enforce those already on the books.