0 Obama support for gun control has roots in Chicago

President Barack Obama's support for gun control has its roots in his hometown of Chicago, a city plagued by deadly shootings where as many children die from guns every four months as were slaughtered at a horrific school shooting in Connecticut. Obama told a Chicago audience Friday that high-profile mass shootings are one part of a national tragedy created not just by guns but by communities where there is too little hope. As a result, he said, "too many of our children are being taking away from us." 

Gun control was not on Obama's agenda in his first term, but the president responded quickly to the December shooting of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut. He is pushing measures including background checks for all gun purchases and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, even as both sides in the debate doubt he'll be able to achieve the full package. Gun advocates have pushed back hard, arguing that such restrictions are an infringement on the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which states that citizens have the right to bear arms. 

Standing before Hyde Park Academy students in their navy uniform shirts, the president said 65 children were killed by gun violence last year in Chicago. "That's the equivalent of a Newtown every four months," Obama said. "This is not just a gun issue," Obama said. "It's also an issue of the kinds of communities that we're building, and for that we all share responsibility as citizens to fix it." It was an emotional return to a city whose recent shooting victims have included Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old drum majorette gunned down a mile (less than 2 kilometers) from Obama's home just days after she performed at the president's inauguration in Washington. 

Obama was a reliable vote in favor of gun control as an Illinois state senator in the late 1990s, with one important exception that contributed to his only electoral loss. While running in 1999 for the Democratic primary for a seat in the House of Representatives, Obama missed a vote on a gun control measure that narrowly failed, an episode that he later said cost him any chance to win. The lesson for the future president: Don't sit idly by in reaction to gun violence.

source : the jakarta post