Another tough question from Tapper:
TAPPER: It seems to a lot of observers that you made the political calculation in 2008, in your first term and in 2012 not to talk about gun violence. You had your position on renewing the ban on semiautomatic rifles that then Senator Biden put into place, but you didn’t do much about it. This is not the first issue — the first incident of horrific gun violence of your four years. Where have you been?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, here’s where I’ve been, Jake. I’ve been president of the United States, dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, an auto industry on the verge of collapse, two wars. I don’t think I’ve been on vacation.
And so, you know, I think all of us have to do some reflection on how we prioritize what we do here in Washington. And as I said on Sunday, you know, this should be a wake-up call for all of us to say that if we are not getting right the need to keep our children safe, then nothing else matters. And it’s my commitment to make sure that, that we do everything we can to keep our children safe. A lot of things go — are involved in that, Jake. So making sure they’ve got decent health care and making sure they’ve got a good education, making sure that their parents have jobs — those are all relevant as well. Those aren’t just sort of side issues. But there’s no doubt that this has to be a central issue. And that’s exactly why I’m confident that Joe is going to take this so seriously over the next couple months.
Tapper is right, of course. Take at look at the president’s website on the “Sportsmen for Obama” page:
And that is all there is on this “central issue.”
And let’s not forget President Obama’s op-ed after the Rep. Giffords shooting in 2011 when he wrote:
Now, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. And the courts have settled that as the law of the land. In this country, we have a strong tradition of gun ownership that’s handed from generation to generation. Hunting and shooting are part of our national heritage.
It will be interesting to see what exactly the president proposes over the coming weeks. Will we see the president that agrees with Justice Scalia in Heller or a president who has “evolved” on his reading of the Second Amendment?