U.S. President Barack Obama is promoting gun control and validated prayers in the aftermath of the mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado Springs, Colorado on Friday.
"This is not normal," Obama said in a statement on Saturday. "We can't let it become normal. If we truly care about this — if we're going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience — then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them," Obama continued.
"Period," he added. "Enough is enough."
On Friday, a gunman killed three people, including a police officer, at a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado Springs. Authorities said another nine people were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds. A suspect is in custody, but the police did not describe his motives, according to The New York Times.
"The last thing Americans should have to do, over the holidays or any day, is comfort the families of people killed by gun violence - people who woke up in the morning and bid their loved ones goodbye with no idea it would be for the last time," Obama said. "And yet, two days after Thanksgiving, that's what we are forced to do again."
Obama repeatedly has called for new gun-control measures after mass shootings. The president sometimes is accused of politicizing tragedies, however, Obama argues there is a public-policy issue within reach that could lead to lives being saved.
"This is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together," Obama said after an October shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon, left 10 people dead. "This is a political choice we make to allow this to happen every few months in America."
Obama's statement after the Roseburg shooting was the 15th time he had to respond to a mass shooting during his presidency, according to a count by CBS's Mark Knoller.
"We don't yet know what this particular gunman's so-called motive was for shooting 12 people, or for terrorizing an entire community, when he opened fire with an assault weapon and took hostages at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado. What we do know is that he killed a cop in the line of duty, along with two of the citizens that police officer was trying to protect. We know that law enforcement saved lives, as so many of them do every day, all across America. And we know that more Americans and their families had fear forced upon them," Obama said Saturday.
"May God bless Officer Garrett Swasey and the Americans he tried to save — and may He grant the rest of us the courage to do the same thing."
