Obama addresses gun control

He says tightening needed to fight violence but he’d seek consensus

President Barack Obama speaks at a fundraiser Wednesday at New Orleans’ House of Blues. The White House announced a predicted a $1.2 trillion budget deficit for 2012.
President Barack Obama speaks at a fundraiser Wednesday at New Orleans’ House of Blues. The White House announced a predicted a $1.2 trillion budget deficit for 2012.

— President Barack Obama on Wednesday embraced some degree of control on the sale of weapons but said he also would seek a national consensus on combating violence. He said responsibility for curtailing bloodshed also rests with parents, neighbors and teachers to ensure that young people “do not have that void inside them.”

Speaking just six days after the movie-theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead, Obama pledged to work with lawmakers of both parties to stop violence, not only the sudden massacres that have bedeviled the nation but also the steady drip of urban crime that has cost many young lives.

“We should leave no stone unturned and recognize that we have no greater mission than keeping our young people safe,” Obama said in a speech to the National Urban League.

Obama called for steppedup background checks for people who want to purchase guns and restrictions to keep mentally unbalanced individuals from buying weapons. He says those steps “shouldn’t be controversial; they should be common sense.”

But he also added, “We must also understand that when a child opens fire on other children, there’s a hole in his heart that no government can fill.”

Obama’s speech represented a bookend to a four-day trip that began in Colorado on Sunday, when he visited with survivors of the theater massacre.

Obama’s likely Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, said on a trip to London that stricter gun laws wouldn’t have prevented the Colorado shooting.

“I don’t happen to believe that America needs new gun laws. A lot of what this ... young man did was clearly against the law. But the fact that it was against the law did not prevent it from happening,” Romney said.

The address to the Urban League also was an overture to a voting bloc that overwhelmingly backs him but has sustained much of the brunt of the economic downturn.

In his speech, Obama promoted his economic and health-care policies, tailoring what has become a standard campaign speech to his black audience. He drew attention to initiatives that have helped Americans in general and blacks in particular.

But, as he did during his 2008 campaign, he also pressed personal responsibility.

He said young Americans are competing against kids in Beijing and Bangalore. “You know, they’re not hanging out ... they’re not playing video games, they’re not watching Real Housewives,” he said. “I’m just saying. It’s a two-way street. You’ve got to earn success.”

Ahead of Obama’s remarks, the Urban League played a video showing photos of famous black Americans that culminated with images of the president and his family the night of the 2008 election.

Obama announced that he would sign an executive order today that creates a new office to bolster the education of black students. The White House says the office will coordinate the work of communities and federal agencies to ensure that these youngsters are better prepared for high school, college and career.

DEFENDING REMARKS

Meanwhile, Obama’s team rolled out two new TV ads this week in which he, for the first time, talks directly into the camera and counters Republican criticism of a remark he made 12 days ago about business owners.

“Those ads taking my words about small business out of context — they’re flatout wrong,” Obama says in the newest ad.

Democrats say the “directto-camera” format plays to the president’s strength, and they don’t think probable Romney can match it.

Romney aides kept up the pressure Wednesday, sponsoring 24 events on the topic while Romney was overseas.

Democratic strategists acknowledged Wednesday that Obama was being hurt, at least a little, by Romney’s repeated jabs at comments the president made July 13 in Virginia, which originally drew little notice.

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” Obama said then, in part. “Somebody else made that happen.”

In that speech, Obama focused on the notion that government-assisted infrastructure including roads, research and schools help sustain American society, including private enterprise.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help,” Obama said in the July 13 speech. He cited teachers and mentors who helped “create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges.”

Late on July 16, the Romney campaign began a drumbeat of attacks quoting only the line, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” using a series of ads, videos, statements and conference calls to portray Obama as contemptuous of hardworking entrepreneurs and business owners.

BIDEN ON FIREFIGHTERS

Also Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden told a national firefighters’ union that Republicans don’t understand them and that government should be helping cities and states maintain fire services — not threatening to cut funding.

Firefighters face a “perfect storm,” he told more than 3,000 firefighters at the annual meeting of the International Association of Fire Fighters. He cited the effects of the recession, budgetary policies in Congress and efforts to dismantle the collective-bargaining rights of firefighters and other public employees around the country.

Biden said Republicans look at firefighters and see an easy place to cut budgets.

After the speech, Romney’s campaign issued a statement from a retired Philadelphia firefighter who said Obama is out of touch with the struggles of middle-class people.

“Joe Biden can come to Philadelphia, and he can try and tell the hardworking men and women of this city that he understands what we’ve been going through,” said Fred Donnelly, a retired battalion chief. “But no matter what he says, he can’t cover up the words of the president.”

‘ANGLO-SAXON’ FLAP

Meanwhile, Romney is distancing himself from an unnamed adviser quoted in British media as suggesting that Obama doesn’t understand the “Anglo-Saxon” heritage shared by Britain and the U.S.

Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said Wednesday that if an adviser did say that, the adviser wasn’t reflecting Romney’s views.

Biden and David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign adviser, criticized Romney over the comments reported in the Daily Telegraph.

The London paper quoted an unnamed adviser saying that Romney believes the U.S. relationship with Britain is special because of shared “Anglo-Saxon heritage,” and that the White House doesn’t appreciate that shared history.

Information for this article was contributed from Washington by Charles Babington and Jennifer Agiesta, from New Orleans by Julie Pace, from London by Kasie Hunt, and from Philadelphia by Patrick Walters of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 07/26/2012

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