President Barack Obama said in a recent interview that the lack of progress on gun legislation is "distressing" and that he has often felt "frustrated" on the issue. Obama vowed to continue work on the issue. The president's comments came hours before a gunman opened fire at a cinema in Louisiana, killing two people and injuring several others before shooting himself.
Obama has pushed for stricter gun control throughout his presidency but has been unable to secure any significant changes to the laws. With approximately 18 months left in power, he said gun control was the area where he has been "most frustrated and most stymied" since coming to power in 2009.
"If you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it's less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands. For us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing," Obama said in an interview with BBC News.
The U.S. Constitution allows every American citizen "to keep and bear arms," as a symbol of liberty and a foil against tyrannical governments.
It was after the Newtown, Conn. shooting, which left 20 children dead in December 2012, that Obama began to demand tighter controls on the sale of military-style assault rifles like the one used by 20-year-old shooter Adam Lanza, which was met with opposition from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the gun industry. This resulted in the legislation -- which required mandatory background checks for all gun sales -- never clearing the Senate.
A frustrated Obama said that the U.S. was "the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws," The Economic Times reported.
