Photo: Martin Bureau/Getty Images.
On Wednesday, following a shooting in San Bernardino, CA, that left 14 people dead and at least 20 people wounded, President Obama spoke out on the tragedy. Obama told CBS News that the United States has "a pattern now of mass shootings that has no parallel anywhere else in the world."
According to data from anti-gun-violence organization Everytown, 88 people are killed by firearms each day in the United States. And as Obama addressed the nation after Wednesday's tragedy, he stressed that thoughts and prayers aren't enough to stop gun violence from happening. The president also stressed that mass shootings like Wednesday's should be "rare, as opposed to normal," in the United States.
Obama has had to give this same speech before — many times, most recently on Friday, November 27, when a gunman killed three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, CO. There have been so many shootings since Obama took office that it's possible to make a supercut of the speeches that have followed these tragedies. The details of the shootings and the amount of anger in the president's voice may vary, but the message remains the same.
"We don't yet know what the motives of the shooters are, but what we do know is that there are steps we can take to make Americans safer," Obama told CBS News of the San Bernardino shooting. "We should never think that this is just something that just happens in the ordinary course of events, because it doesn't happen with the same frequency in other countries."
No matter what your stance is on gun control, both sides of the aisle can agree that weapons should be kept out of the hands of dangerous people, such as those responsible for mass shootings. It's up to all of us to make sure Obama doesn't have to keep giving speeches like these.