Making good on President Barack Obama’s pledge to use the full power of his office to advance measures to stem gun violence, the White House Friday posted videos of four children calling for stricter gun laws.
The children featured in the videos are the four who stood behind Obama on Wednesday as he signed a series of executive actions and called on Congress to enact stricter gun control measures.
Those four, the White House said, were just a representative few of the many letters from children the president had received in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 students and six educators before taking his own life.
One letter writer, 11-year-old Julia Stokes, said that she was not scared so much for her own safety as she was for the safety of others.
“I have four brothers and sisters and I know I would not be able to bear the thought of losing any of them,” she said. “My opinion is it should be very hard for people to buy guns. The only thing they do is harm or kill.”
She added, “I know that laws have to be passed by Congress, but I beg you to try very hard to make guns not allowed, not just for me but for the whole United States.”
Obama, in his remarks announcing his gun violence agenda, quoted Stokes’ comment and said, “Julia, I will try very hard.”
He added, “But she’s right. The most important changes we can make depend on congressional action. They need to bring these proposals up for a vote, and the American people need to make sure that they do.”
The videos, however, prompted an immediate backlash from some on the right, with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh calling the White House’s featuring of children “the children as human shields show.”
“It’s stunning. You look at what’s happening in the country,” he said, adding that he had reviewed Obama’s proposed executive actions. “There isn’t one of them that would have stopped what happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.”
by RTT Staff Writer
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