Obama In Tears While Unveiling His Plan To Curb Gun Violence

President Obama in tears while announcing executive actions on gun control

Tears started rolling down President Obama’s face while announcing his executive actions on gun control today. In a live broadcast he reminded us just how much we’ve lost to the gun lobby’s lies.

He reminded us how important it is to have safeguards in place to minimize gun accidents: “In 2013 alone more than 500 people lost their lives in gun accidents and that includes 30 children younger than 5 years old. In the greatest most technologically advanced nation on earth there’s no reason for this. We need to develop new technologies that make guns safer. If we can set it up so you can’t unlock your phone unless you’ve got the right fingerprint, why can’t we do the same thing for our guns?” That’s nothing if not reasonable. How can you argue that point?

“If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure they can’t pull a trigger on a gun,” he said. Amen.

While laying out plans and describing exactly what his executive action entails, he reminded us just how much families have suffered because congress refuses to stand up to the gun lobby:

“Our right to peaceful assembly was robbed from moviegoers in Aurora and Lafayette, our inalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness — those rights were stripped from college kids in Santa Barbara and from high schoolers at Columbine. And from first graders in Newtown. First graders. And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from their lives by a bullet from a gun.”

Here is where tears began to roll down Obama’s cheeks: in the moment when he reminded us that just a few years ago grade school children were victims of unfathomable violence. “Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad – and by the way it happens on the streets of Chicago every day,” he said. “So all of us need to demand a Congress brave enough to stand up to the gun lobby’s lies.”

The gun control argument should not be something that divides us. Most of us agree that there is a need to make gun ownership unilaterally safer. As Obama reminds us, “We need the wide majority of responsible gun owners who grieve with us every time this happens and feel your views are not being properly represented to join with us to demand something better. And we need voters who want safer gun laws and are disappointed with leaders who stand in their way to remember come election time.”

His speech was a powerful reminder that we are not helpless — we have the ability to vote people in and out of office, and only support those candidates who take this dire situation seriously:

“Yes, the gun lobby is loud and it is organized in the defense of making it effortless for guns to be available for anybody any time. Well you know what? The rest of us have to be just as passionate, just as organized in defense of our kids. This is not that complicated. The reason congress blocks laws is because they want to win elections. And if you make it hard for them to win an election if they block those laws, they’ll change course — I promise you.”

We should all stand behind a president who is willing to publicly shed tears for the death of our children: one who is willing to speak truthfully about the insane power the gun lobby holds in this country. I’ve never been prouder of our president than I was today.

To read more about the details of Obama’s executive action on guns, see the fact sheet on WhiteHouse.gov.