10 October 2015•Update: 13 October 2015
WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama on Friday met with victims’ relatives of a deadly rampage at an Oregon community college.
Following the hour-long meeting, Obama made brief remarks in which he tried to keep the focus on the victims. “We’re going to have to come together as a country to see how we can prevent these issues from taking place,” he said. “But today it’s about the families - their grief and the love we feel from them.”
A 26-year old man fatally shot nine victims at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, last week before turning the gun on himself.
Within hours of the shooting, Obama urged Americans to pressure their congressional representatives to pass stricter gun control laws, citing polls that show most citizens favor tougher gun laws.
He said mass shootings and the nation’s response to them, including his own, had become “routine”.
Many who favor gun ownership have accused the president of using mass shootings as a political tool to complete a personal agenda.
Obama was greeted in Oregon by supporters, but lining the route of the presidential motorcade were many demonstrators who believe the president is attempting to bypass Congress by using his Executive Order powers to expand background checks for those who want to purchase guns.
The father of one of the victims of the Oregon shooting refused an invitation to meet Obama, blaming the president for "politicizing the tragedy", according to media reports.
"On principle, I find that I am in disagreement with his policies on gun control, and therefore, we will not be attending the visit," Stacy Boylan told Fox News.
On the same day Obama met with victims of the Oregon shooting, two more deadly shootings occurred at separate U.S. college campuses, just ahead of the president’s visit.
One person was killed and three others wounded, allegedly by 18-year-old freshman at Northern Arizona University’s Flagstaff campus.
And at Texas Southern University in Houston, one person was killed and another injured at a campus apartment complex. The suspects in both shooting were detained.
At least 143 shootings in U.S. schools have taken place since January 2013 -- an average of nearly one per week -- according to Everytown, an NGO calling for reforms to reduce gun violence.
