WASHINGTON — With frustration, disbelief and frequent anger, President Barack Obama grieved the deaths in the mass shooting at a community college in Oregon on Thursday but demanded a change in culture as he diagnosed gun violence as a uniquely American problem — and lamented Americans’ numbness to it.
“We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months,” Obama said from the White House briefing room, his voice rising in frustration. “Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine.
“The conversation in the aftermath of it — we’ve become numb to this,” he added, citing Columbine, Blacksburg, Newtown, Tucson, Aurora, Charleston — a litany of places now synonymous with mass carnage.
“This is a political choice we make to allow this to happen every few months in America,” Obama said, pointing out that when mine disasters or floods kill people, the U.S. acts to improve safety, but that the same reaction doesn’t apply to gun violence.
