President Barack Obama, who largely failed to get increased gun control measures passed through Congress during his term in the White House, is demanding the Biden administration pursue stricter gun control measures — but also measures to reduce the “disaffection, racism, and misogyny,” which Obama claims motivate mass shooters.
Obama made the statements on social media Tuesday, following a Monday mass shooting at a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket that left 10 people dead. Authorities have yet to establish a motive for the massacre, but the alleged gunman, whose name is being withheld per Daily Wire policy, was a Syrian-born man, known to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, who his family says suffers from mental health issues including paranoia, and who has a history of assault.
Obama, however, “linked mass shootings to discrimination in a message posted to Twitter calling for new gun control laws after the Boulder, Colo., shooting Monday and the murder of eight last week at massage parlors in the Atlanta area,” the New York Post reported.
“It will take time to root out the disaffection, racism, and misogyny that fuels so many of these senseless acts of violence. But we can make it harder for those with hate in their hearts to buy weapons of war,” Obama wrote.
“We can overcome opposition by cowardly politicians and the pressure of a gun lobby that opposes any limit on the ability of anyone to assemble an arsenal,” he added. “We can, and we must. A once-in-a-century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country.”
Although six of the eight Atlanta, Georgia, victims were Asian women, that shooting, also, seems unlikely to have been motivated specifically by race. That alleged gunman, a white male, told law enforcement that he was targeting sex workers in an effort to rid himself of the “temptation” posed by Asian spas, which can sometimes serve as a front for prostitution. Although little information is available on that alleged shooter, it does appear, from some reports, that he was a customer of at least one of the targeted establishments.
Obama did not reference at least one significant American mass shooting — the 2016 massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left nearly 50 people dead and dozens wounded. Information presented at the trial of Noor Salaman, the shooter’s wife, indicated that that, contrary to the conventional wisdom surrounding that incident, the gunman saw Pulse nightclub as a target of opportunity for a terror attack after being turned away from Disney Springs, a retail complex outside of Walt Disney World resort.
Although Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have ramped up their calls to pass strict gun control legislation since Monday, it seems unlikely that the Senate will pass a pair of House bills on the subject, limiting gun sales at gun shows and online and requiring more universal background checks. Swing votes in the Senate, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), seem unwilling to back major gun-control efforts or a plan to eliminate the filibuster in order to pass Biden agenda items.