Barak Obama urges US to re-examine gun culture

WASHINGTON

Barak Obama clearly angry ,but mainly
frustrated ,Once again he was speaking
out after a murderous shooting spree,and
once again he found himself powerless
to act,

This time the pain was personal ,The US
president knew the pastor at the black
church in South Carolina who was cut
down along with eight of his flock in an
apparently racist attack.

But his anger was made all the worse by
the knowledge that none of the previous
series of mass shootings on his watch  have
pushed fellow Washington politicians to act
I"ve  had to make statements like this too
many times " he said in brief remarks from
the White House podium,flanked by an
equally ashen-face Vice President Joe Biden

Once again innocent people were killed in
part because some one who wanted to inflict
harm had no trouble getting their hands on
a gun:"he complained.

Mass shootings  are not a uniquely American
phenomenon but culturally similar countries
like Australia and Britain tightened gun laws
after massacres ,and seem to have saved lives

Many in the United States see the Second
Amendment to the Constitution,which  protests
the right of citizens to bear arms ,as a bar to
any limitation  on gun ownership'

"Now is time for mourning and for healing
,but let's be clear;At some point we as a country
will have to reckon with the fact that this type
of mass violence does not happen in other
advance countries ,Obama said.

"It doesn't happen in other places with this kind
of frequency .And it is our power to do something
about it,It was telling that he used the phrase
"Our power"after seven years and a half a dozen
massacres ,Obama knows that his power alone
will not be enough to change the debate.

In 2013 after December 2012 slaughter of 26
people -including 20 young children --at a
Connecticut school ,Obama took 23 executive'
decisions to tweak gun rules,

The public was briefly in a state of shock and
some commentators thought a turning point
had been  reached ,but an attempt to bring a broad
gun control  bill to Congress failed,
AFP