White House rips GOP for blocking gun control measures

The White House on Friday ripped congressional Republicans for opposing efforts to tighten the nation’s gun laws in the wake of Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest lashed out at Republicans who “stood up once again with the NRA [National Rifle Association] and in the face of common sense” to block measures to expand background checks and bar individuals on terrorist watch lists from purchasing firearms.

{mosads}”Why on Earth do we think it’s a good idea for somebody that the government thinks is too dangerous to board a plane to be able to buy a gun?” Earnest asked. “But, once again Republicans blocked that legislation that would make that illegal. So we’ve got some work to do.” 

In the face of opposition from Congress, the president is weighing new executive actions on guns, including tightening background-check requirements for gun sellers. 

Obama is meeting Friday with gun control advocates to help amplify calls for stricter gun laws around the country, Earnest said. 

But the White House has offered no timeline for the release of potential unilateral action on guns. 

The GOP-controlled Senate on Thursday rejected two new gun control measures.

An amendment to an ObamaCare repeal bill offered Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) would have blocked the sale of firearms or explosives to people on a federal terrorism watch list. The measure failed 45-54. 

The second rejected proposal would have renewed a universal background check bill that was first written in response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which left 28 dead, most of them children. The Senate voted 48-50 to block that bill from moving forward. 

The amendments almost certainty would not have become law had they passed, however, as Obama is expected to veto the broader legislation repealing core parts of his healthcare law.

In the days following the California shooting, Obama repeatedly flagged easy access to guns as contributing to violence.

“As the investigation moves forward, it’s going to be important for all of us — including our legislatures — to see what we can do to make sure that when individuals decide that they want to do somebody harm, we’re making it a little harder for them to do it,” he said Thursday in the Oval Office. “Because right now it’s just too easy.” 

Republicans have blasted Obama’s focus on guns, stressing the suspected attackers’ links to Islamic extremism. 

But Obama emphasized that guns should remain a core concern, even if the shooters’ were motivated by terror networks like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“People can’t get on planes but those same people who we don’t allow to fly could go into a store right now in the United States and buy a firearm and there’s nothing that we can do to stop them,” he said in an interview with CBS News. “That’s a law that needs to be changed.”