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onehandle

(51,122 posts) Thu Oct 1, 2015, 10:00 PM Oct 2015

Obama On Oregon Shooting: 'We've Become Numb To This'

Source: Huffington Post

President Barack Obama sounded exasperated on Thursday as he once again responded to a mass shooting, this time talking about the rampage at an Oregon community college earlier in the day. Obama expressed frustration that it was necessary for him to frequently console victims' families and that he was again calling for new gun control regulations.

"Somehow this has become routine," Obama said from the White House. "We've become numb to this." Ten people were killed and seven injured at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, according Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin.

Responding to mass shootings has been an unfortunate theme of Obama's presidency. By one count, Obama has issued statements following at least 14 other mass killings. Obama called for tighter gun control laws after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, but came up empty-handed. He once said the "greatest frustration" of his presidency has been the failure to pass "common-sense gun safety laws." Citing previous shootings that resulted in no significant changes in the availability of weapons, Obama said politicians and the public are accountable.

"We are collectively answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction," Obama said. He also urged the news media to break its template for covering mass shootings. It would be a powerful message, he said, if journalists produced stories comparing the number of terrorism victims to the number of people killed by guns in the United States.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-on-oregon-shooting-weve-become-numb-to-this_560dae19e4b0dd85030b6e42

Gun culture is terrorism.

5 replies

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Highlight:

Obama On Oregon Shooting: 'We've Become Numb To This' (Original Post) onehandle Oct 2015 OP

Tepid Comcast headline. Should be "Obama Calls Nation to Arms Against Arms!" Fred Sanders Oct 2015 #1

The answer will be in the hands of the survivors of the victims. Baitball Blogger Oct 2015 #2

"One death is a tragedy, 1,000,000 deaths is a statistic" central scrutinizer Oct 2015 #3

I don't feel numb...just defeated! passiveporcupine Oct 2015 #4

America's numbness to violence goes beyond this. Bonobo Oct 2015 #5

Fred Sanders

(23,946 posts)

1. Tepid Comcast headline. Should be "Obama Calls Nation to Arms Against Arms!"

Reply to onehandle (Original post)

Thu Oct 1, 2015, 10:11 PM

Oct 2015

To answer the question Obama posed of journalists, those that remain:

Terrorism victims in America, 2015 to date - 0

Gun victims to date - in the tens of thousands.

Yep. Powerful message there if one can grasp the complexity of the concept and do the complex math.

Where should the fear and the action be?

Baitball Blogger

(46,699 posts)

2. The answer will be in the hands of the survivors of the victims.

Reply to onehandle (Original post)

Thu Oct 1, 2015, 10:21 PM

Oct 2015

We need to get an organization that can do to gun control what MADD did to Drunk driving.

central scrutinizer

(11,648 posts)

3. "One death is a tragedy, 1,000,000 deaths is a statistic"

Reply to onehandle (Original post)

Thu Oct 1, 2015, 10:37 PM

Oct 2015

Joseph Stalin

passiveporcupine

(8,175 posts)

4. I don't feel numb...just defeated!

Reply to onehandle (Original post)

Thu Oct 1, 2015, 11:18 PM

Oct 2015

You cannot make yourself numb to this kind of pain, unless you are a sociopath.

Bonobo

(29,257 posts)

5. America's numbness to violence goes beyond this.

Reply to onehandle (Original post)

Fri Oct 2, 2015, 12:27 AM

Oct 2015

I do not think it is POSSIBLE to have a society that is NOT numb to violence when you have a military that kills people every single week for over a decade.

So yeah, we are numb to this kind of mass killing in the US.

No, it is NOT unrelated to our mass killing abroad.

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