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For Obama, a Dual Role as Consoler and Advocate For Obama, a Dual Role as Consoler and Advocate
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama honored the victims of the Navy Yard shooting during a memorial service on Sunday, serving once again as the nation’s consoler after a mass killing. WASHINGTON — President Obama on Sunday eulogized the 12 casualties of the Navy Yard shooting and lamented what he called a “creeping resignation” in America about the inevitability of gun violence.
The service was held at the Marine barracks down the street from the Navy Yard, where, the authorities said, a naval contractor armed with a shotgun killed 12 people and wounded a dozen more last week before being killed by the police. In remarks to service members and their families who packed onto bleachers in the barracks about two-and-a-half blocks from where the massacre took place last week, Mr. Obama vowed that he would not accept inaction after the latest in a string of mass shootings during his presidency.
It has become an all-too-familiar role for Mr. Obama, who has presided over similarly grim services for the victims of shootings in Newtown, Conn.; Tucson; Aurora, Colo.; Oak Creek, Wis.; and Fort Hood, Tex. But the president appeared exasperated with the political system that he leads, admitting that changes in the nation’s gun laws “will not come from Washington, even when tragedy strikes Washington.” He acknowledged that his previous effort to pass new gun laws failed, but he did not specifically call for a new political battle, saying change would come only when Americans decide they have had enough.
At each event, the president has sought to find the right balance between the sadness of a nation and the anger of its citizens. On Sunday, he once again tried to help the families of the victims find some peace after an unexplainable event. The question is not, he said, “whether as Americans we care in moments of tragedy. Clearly we care. Our hearts are broken again. The question is do we care enough?”
But the memorial services have also served to provide Mr. Obama with the emotional power to fuel his gun-control efforts. During each event, the president has urged the nation to pass laws that would keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and mentally ill people. “It ought to be a shock to all of us, as a nation and a people,” he said. “It ought to obsess us. It ought to lead to some sort of transformation.”
That message reached a fever pitch after the service for the 20 children who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Mr. Obama denounced the repeated memorial services he had attended as president and vowed to do something to reduce the cycle of violence. In his remarks to about 4,000 people, Mr. Obama called the Navy Yard shooting “unique,” and he remembered each of those who died by name, offering small memories from family members and friends of those who died: a volunteer, a bible story leader, a navy architect, a grandmother, a soccer coach, a car lover.
“Surely we can do better than this,” Mr. Obama said. “If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town from the grief that has visited Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek and Newtown and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that, then surely we have an obligation to try.” “These are not statistics,” he said. “They are the lives that have been taken from us.”
He added: “In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens — from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators — in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.” But he said the Navy Yard shootings were part of a pattern of gun violence that sets America apart among advanced nations. Together, he said, they represent a kind of tragedy that has become accepted as “somehow just the way it is.”
That promise led to an effort by the administration to push through aggressive gun restrictions, including an expanded background-check system that would have closed loopholes that allowed guns to be sold without a check. Before the ceremony, Mr. Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met privately with family members of the victims.
But months later, that effort failed when the Senate could not pass a compromise background-check bill amid fierce opposition from the National Rifle Association and lawmakers who favor gun rights. It has become an all-too-familiar role for Mr. Obama, who has presided over similarly grim services for the victims of shootings in Newtown, Conn.; Tucson; Aurora, Colo.; Oak Creek, Wis.; and Fort Hood, Tex. At each event, the president has sought to find the right balance between the sadness of a nation and the anger of its citizens.
In recent days, Mr. Obama has repeated his call for Congress to act to reduce the availability of guns to criminals and those who are mentally ill. Aaron Alexis, who is suspected of being the gunman in the Navy Yard shooting, had a history of mental health problems. But the memorial services in the past have also served to provide Mr. Obama with the emotional power to fuel his efforts to curb gun violence. During each event, the president has urged the nation to pass laws that would keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and mentally ill people.
In a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday night, Mr. Obama said the country must not give up the gun-control effort despite the legislative setbacks. He said mass shootings like the one at the Navy Yard, as well as the increasing gun violence in places like Chicago, demand action. That message reached a fever pitch after the service for the 20 children who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, when Mr. Obama declared that it was time for Washington to take action.
“We fought a good fight earlier this year, but we came up short,” he told the lawmakers. “And that means we’ve got to get back up and go back at it. Because as long as there are those who fight to make it as easy as possible for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun, then we’ve got to work as hard as possible for the sake of our children. We’ve got to be the ones who are willing to do more work to make it harder.” “In the coming weeks,” he said at the Newtown memorial, “I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens — from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators — in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.”
But in Washington, there is little evidence that lawmakers’ positions on gun violence have shifted much in the past several months. And with Congress locked in a bitter fight about the debt and the budget, there appears to be little appetite on Capitol Hill for another battle over guns. That promise led to an effort by the administration to push through aggressive gun restrictions, including an expanded background-check system that would have closed loopholes that allowed guns to be sold without a check. But months later, that effort failed when the Senate could not pass a compromise background-check bill amid fierce opposition from the National Rifle Association and lawmakers who favor gun rights.
The president on Sunday did not specifically pledge to try again, noting that “the politics are difficult, as we saw this spring.” But he sought to reassure supporters of gun control measures that they would be successful, eventually, because of the grief that tragedies like the Navy Yard shootings produce.
“It may not happen tomorrow and it may not happen next week and it may not happen next month,” he said. “But it will happen, because its the change we need.”
“Our tears are not enough,” he added. “Our words and our prayers are not enough.” If Americans want to honor the 12 men and women who died at the Navy Yard, he said, “We’re going to have to change. We’re going to have to change.”
Mr. Obama quoted from Robert F. Kennedy’s speech in the hours after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1963. In that speech, the president said, Mr. Kennedy quoted a poet who said that “even in our sleep, pain which we cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart” until later comes “wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
Mr. Obama ended his remarks by urging that “in our grief, let us seek that grace. Let us find that wisdom.”
The United States Navy Band played somber music as the guests quietly filed in ahead of the speakers, who included Vice Admiral William Hilarides, the commander of the Naval Sea Systems Command, where the shootings took place.
Also speaking were Vincent Gray, the mayor of Washington; Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations; Ray Mabus, the secretary of the Navy; and Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defense.
Mr. Gray echoed Mr. Obama’s frustration with the refusal to pass new gun laws, saying that “this time it happened within the view of our Capitol dome and I, for one, will not be silent about the fact that the time has come for action.”
Mr. Hagel declared that “together, we will recover.”
The memorial wound down with a reading of the names of the 12 people who were killed at the Navy Yard, and then a long, sad rendition of Taps.