Good for President Obama, and his fellow Democrats. Reuters, via HuffPo:
HARTFORD, Conn., April 8 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama urged Americans on Monday to pressure a reluctant Congress to pass new gun control legislation – one of his top domestic policy priorities – as he traveled to Connecticut, where December’s school massacre took place.
Initial momentum for tougher U.S. gun control laws sought by Obama after the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown has stalled in Congress in the face of fierce lobbying by gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association.
Obama, speaking at the University of Hartford, said that date changed everything for families of the 20 children and six adults killed at Sandy Hook elementary school.
“I know many of you in Newtown wondered if the rest of us would live up to the promises we made in those dark days … once the television trucks left, once the candles flickered out, once the teddy bears were gathered up,” Obama was to say in prepared remarks. “We will not walk away from the promise we’ve made.”…
Last week, Obama gave a speech in Denver trying to rally support for gun control, touting a new state law in Colorado – scene of two of the deadliest gun massacres in American history – as “a model of what’s possible.”
The president’s speech on Monday will be followed up by a White House event on Tuesday with Vice President Joe Biden and law enforcement officials. Biden also is due to speak about gun control on Thursday on the MSNBC cable TV network.
First lady Michelle Obama is set to address gun control during a visit on Wednesday to Chicago, which has faced a spree of gun violence. (Editing by Alistair Bell and Xavier Briand)
(video at the link, but I can’t get it to embed without blocking text)
And furthermore, from ABC News: “Reid Says Republicans ‘Seem Afraid’ of Gun Control Debate“:
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had some tough words for Republicans threatening to filibuster gun control legislation the full Senate will start working on this week: “Shame on them.”
“Senate Republicans seem afraid to even engage in this debate,” Reid said on the Senate floor of the Republicans threatening to filibuster the gun control legislation.
“The least Republicans owe the parents of these 20 little babies who are murdered at Sandy Hook is a thoughtful debate about who whether stronger laws could have saved their little girls and boys,” Reid said. “The least Republicans owe them is a vote.”…