Obama honors shooting victims, urges Americans to help stop gun violence

President Obama paid tribute Sunday to the 12 civilians killed last week in the Washington Navy Yard shootings and urged Americans to help take guns “out of the hands of criminal and dangerous people.”

Obama told the country that the service, in the shadows of Capitol Hill, marks the fifth time that he as president has remembered victims of a mass shooting and tried to console their grieving families.

“It ought to be a shock to us,” Obama said in his roughly 15-minute speech. “It ought to lead us to some sort of transformation. … Our hearts are broken again.”

The president, in a somber but defiant tone, suggested that Washington and the rest of the country has lost its resolve to end the level of gun violence that sets the United States apart from other countries.

“After all of the speeches, all of the punditry, nothing,” he said on the warm day in early fall.

Obama said he senses “a creeping resignation that these tragedies are just the way it is — a new normal. We cannot accept this. There’s nothing normal about innocent people getting gunned down at work.”

The shooter in the attack has been identified as Aaron Alexis, an IT contractor with an apparent history of emotional problems. Despite his issues, Alexis still had security access to the naval facility and was able to purchase a weapon.

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