Obama Calls for ‘Common-Sense, Gun Safety Laws,’ in Wake of San Bernardino Shooting

While giving an interview to CBS News on Wednesday, President Barack Obama made a statement on the ongoing situation involving a shooting in San Bernardino, CA.

CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell asked, “Mr. President, it seems there’s been another mass shooting in California. What do you know?”

Obama said, “Well, we don’t know that much yet. It’s still an active situation, FBI is on the ground offering assistance to local officials as they need it. It does appear there will be some casualties, and, you know, obviously our hearts go out to the victims and the families. The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world. There’s some steps we could take not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as frequently. Common-sense, gun safety laws, stronger background checks. And, you know, for those concerned about terrorism, you know, some may be aware of the fact that we have a no-fly list where people can’t get on planes, but those same people we don’t allow to fly can go into a store right now, buy a firearm and there is nothing we can do to stop them. That’s a law that needs to be changed. My hope is that we’re able to contain this particular shooting. And we don’t yet know the motives of the shooters. But we know that steps we can take to make Americans safer, and we should come together on a bipartisan basis to make these rare. It doesn’t happen with the same frequency in other countries.”

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