WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Sunday that the day of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was the worst of his presidency and that he wanted new legislation limiting access to some types of firearms passed within the first year of his second term.
“I think anybody who was up in Newtown, who talked to the parents, who talked to the families, understands that something fundamental in America has to change,” Obama said on NBC News program Meet the Press. “And all of us have to do some soul searching, including me as president, that we allow a situation in which 20 precious small children are getting gunned down in a classroom.”
He said that he would wait for a report from a task force chaired by Vice President Joe Biden before proposing specific legislation. But he said he had long supported a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition clips as well as expanded background checks as a way to ease gun violence in America.
The shooting in Newtown, where 20 elementary schoolchildren and six adults were killed in a matter of minutes by a man with an assault rifle, has renewed a national debate about gun control.
Obama said shortly after the shooting that gun control would be a “central issue” of his second term. Though some gun-control opponents have said they would be open to discussions about the issue, most have made clear they would oppose any legislation restricting gun ownership.
Leaders of the National Rifle Association and gun control opponents in Congress have said they are not interested in cooperating with Biden’s task force and have vowed to fight efforts to impose some type of ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines like those used in the Newtown shooting.
After the shooting, the NRA proposed placing armed security guards at schools across the country.
In the interview on Sunday, Obama said he was “skeptical” that armed guards were a realistic solution.
He said no major changes in the nation’s gun laws were possible without the strong support of the American people, but added that he believed most Americans, including gun owners, supported some type of legislation to restrict access to firearms.
“I think there are a vast majority of responsible gun owners out there who recognize that we can’t have a situation in which somebody with severe psychological problems is able to get the kind of high-capacity weapons that this individual in Newtown obtained and gun down our kids,” he said.
Obama said he would put forward a specific proposal based on recommendations from Biden’s task force and lean on Congress to pass legislation within the first year of his term.
“The question then becomes whether we are actually shook up enough by what happened here that it does not just become another one of these routine episodes where it gets a lot of attention for a couple of weeks and then it drifts way,” Obama said, speaking of the Newtown shooting.
“This is something that, you know, that was the worst day of my presidency. And it’s not something that I want to see repeated.”
Also Sunday, Obama, in his most detailed comments on an independent inquiry’s report on the attack against the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya that killed four Americans on Sept. 11, said that the security and management flaws identified were “huge problems” that reflected “sloppiness” in how the State Department safeguards its missions abroad.
Obama reaffirmed a decision by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to carry out all 29 of the panel’s recommendations, including dispatching 225 additional Marine guards to embassies and consulates and revamping how threat warnings are used to secure diplomatic posts overseas.
Obama said one major finding - that the State Department relied too heavily on untested local Libyan militias to safeguard the compound in Benghazi, Libya - reflected “internal reviews” by the government.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has been one of the fiercest critics of the administration’s handling of the Benghazi attack, said Sunday that the Senate should delay confirmation hearings on Obama’s choice to be his next secretary of state, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, until Clinton fulfills her promise to testify to Congress about her role in the matter.
“I want to know from the secretary of state’s point of view, ‘Were you informed of the deteriorating security situation?’” Graham said on Fox News Sunday. “‘Were all these cables coming out of Benghazi? Did they ever get up to your level? And if they didn’t, that’s a problem. If they did, why didn’t you act differently?’ I think it’s very important to know how the intelligence coming from Libya, how it was received in the State Department, so we can learn and correct any mistakes.” Information for this article was contributed by Eric Schmitt of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 12/31/2012