In an interview with BBC, President Barack Obama admitted that his failure to pass “common sense gun safety laws” marks his greatest frustration during his tenure as president of the United States.
The president referred to his lack of progress on the issue of gun safety in the U.S. as “distressing” in light of the “mass killings” which have taken place.
Just hours after the interview, a man opened fire at a movie theater in Louisiana, injuring several people and killing three, including himself.
In the interview, President Obama vowed that he would keep trying to pass gun safety laws, but according to the BBC’s North America editor Jon Sopel, the president “did not sound very confident.”
The Guardian reports that President Obama acknowledged that the gun-safety issue will be “the unfinished business of his presidency,” and that he is “distressed” that he has been unable to strengthen the gun laws.
“The issue of guns, that is an area where if you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied,” he said in the interview.
The issue of guns, that is an area where if you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws.
The President said the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by acts of terrorism are less than 100, while “tens of thousands” have died in gun violence.
Meanwhile, Jon Stewart referred to the mass shooting at a Charleston, South Carolina church in June as an act of terrorism.
