Increasingly clear lines are being drawn in the United States between the dangers of racial extremism and the danger of guns.
As the country mourned the Charleston church shooting victims, yes, President Obama spoke about race, but also about weapons. He cited 2013, when 11,000 people were killed with guns in the US.
“You don’t see murder on this kind of scale, with this kind of frequency in any other advanced nation on earth. Every country has violent, hateful or mentally unstable people. What’s different is not every country is awash with easily accessible guns.”
It was the 15th time Obama spoke in the wake of a mass murder with firearms.
In July 2012, a 24-year-old Ph.D. student in neuroscience killed 12 people and wounded 70 at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado.
Six months later, a 20-year-old fatally shot 20 children and 6 adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut — then his mother, at their home, and himself.
Obama signed a directive on the selli
