WASHINGTON: Jeb Bush drew a sharp rebuke from President Barack Obama on Friday after the Republican presidential candidate shrugged off any need for government action in the wake of the massacre of nine people at a community college in Oregon.
“Look, stuff happens,” Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida, said at a campaign event in South Carolina. “There’s always a crisis, and the impulse is always to do something and it’s not always the right thing to do.”
Obama, who in remarks the night before had denounced Congress and the entire American political system for what he called its numbness to repeated gun massacres, responded: “The American people should hear that and make their own judgements based on the fact that every couple of months, we have a mass shooting. They can decide whether they consider that ‘stuff happens.’”
The exchange between Obama and Bush reflected the paralysis that has settled over the issue of new gun control legislation in the United States. Virtually no member of Congress issued a statement after the Oregon shootings arguing for or against new gun control measures, and a number of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates were dismissive of new gun control measures as well. After Obama failed to get Congress to pass even modest gun control legislation after a 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, killed 20 schoolchildren, the president has put more energy into legislation where he can find common ground with Republicans.
As a result, gun control advocates have for now given up on a nationwide, universal background check system or other changes to gun regulations and are instead pushing for tougher gun laws in state legislatures.
— New York Times News Service
