REACTION

Obama: We Need Gun Restrictions

Asks Congress to pass by January.

President Obama announced on Wednesday that Vice President Biden would be leading the push for stricter gun laws. In a speech at the White House that coincided with some of the funerals for the victims of the Newtown school shooting, President Obama insisted that these attacks are “violence that we cannot accept as routine.” Obama said he would “urge Congress” to take on gun-control legislation no later than January—especially a return to the assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004. At the end of the press conference, ABC News’s Jake Tapper noted that this is not the first time there has been gun violence in Obama’s four years in office, asking, “Where have you been?” to which the president defended his record on gun control, saying, “I don’t think I’ve been on vacation.”