By Grace Berry, associate editor-in-chief
President Barack Obama called for “a sense of urgency” to stop gun violence on Jan. 5. According to CNN, he spoke in front of an audience who all had been affected by gun violence and talked about his new executive action on gun control. He wants to expand mandatory background checks for some private sales and create a few common-sense gun safety laws, although some of his ideas he brought up can only be put into law if they are imposed by legislative action. Obama became emotional when he started to talk about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and even added his frustration of the shootings that happen daily on the streets in Chicago.
“We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world. But maybe we could try to stop one act of evil, one act of violence,” Obama said.
Here are Prospect students’ perspective of Obama’s speech and executive action
Senior Jonathan Ampalloor
“There has to be some regulation but I don’t know if you can pass orders for [gun laws] without running it through Congress.”
Junior Matthew Gordon
“I think making guns harder to acquire is a step in the right direction for protecting the safety of Americans.”
Senior Marisa Romanelli
“Obviously it’s not the ultimately right decision, the best thing that could possibly happen is for a law to actually get passed through Congress that both sides could agree on, but that’s not happening. We need to do something. We can’t keep doing the same things we were doing before because people are dying, and we can’t just stand still. So I suppose in a general sense I do approve of Obama’s actions at this time.”
Sophomore Megan Ladd
“I think having harder restrictions on who can get guns and why they’re getting guns is important because if just anyone can get a gun it causes more school shootings and attacks.”