Tearful Obama, Announcing Gun Control Steps, Condemns Shootings

As tears streamed down his face, President Obama on Tuesday condemned the repeated spasms of gun violence across America as he announced new executive actions intended to reduce the number of mass shootings, suicides and killings that have become routine in the nation’s communities.

Speaking in the East Room of the White House surrounded by gun control activists and the families of gun victims, Mr. Obama broke down as he spoke about the young children shot to death in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

“First graders,” he said, his eyes drifting to a distant place and becoming red with tears. The president wiped his eye and paused to regain his composure. “Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad,” he said.

It was not the first time that Mr. Obama has been overcome by emotion while talking about gun violence. And his message was the same as it has been in the aftermath of numerous mass shootings: a plea for action to enact universal background checks and overhaul gun laws.

“The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage right now, but they can’t hold America hostage,” Mr. Obama said. “Congress still needs to act. The folks in this room will not rest until Congress does.”

But having failed in his push for new gun laws three years ago, Mr. Obama conceded Tuesday that “it won’t happen overnight, it won’t happen during this Congress, it won’t happen during my presidency.”

Instead, Mr. Obama said, he is directing his law enforcement agencies and other parts of the government to do what they can without Congress. “Once Congress gets on board with common sense gun safety measures,” he said, “we can reduce gun violence a whole lot more. But we also can’t wait.”

Mr. Obama will seek to expand the number of gun buyers who are subject to criminal background checks by clarifying existing law. He will also hire more personnel to process background checks, direct officials to conduct more gun research, encourage more domestic violence prosecutions and order better tracking of lost guns, officials said.

The efforts are an attempt to sidestep Congress on an issue that has become increasingly divisive politically. But the modest steps Mr. Obama will announce stop well short of the type of large-scale changes to the gun trade that Congress rejected three years ago. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, which killed 26 people, mostly young children, Mr. Obama vowed to seek new gun laws from Congress that would require background checks for all firearms purchases. That effort failed.

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