17 June 2016•Update: 17 June 2016
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON
The campaign to stamp out Daesh is not enough to thwart lone-wolf style terror attacks, President Barack Obama said Thursday after meeting with families of victims of a massacre at a gay nightclub.
"It's going to take more than our military,” Obama said at a makeshift memorial to the victims of the Orlando, Florida, shooting, following a two-hour meeting with the families.
"Our politics have conspired to make it as easy as possible for a terrorist,” he said, “to buy extraordinary powerful weapons and they can do so legally.”
The debate needs to change, he said. "Those who defend the easy accessibility of assault weapons should meet these families."
Forty-nine victims were killed and 53 others injured when Omar Mateen allegedly opened fire with an assault rifle and handgun at the Pulse nightclub.
After the meeting, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with Pulse’s owners and staff who were working early Sunday morning when the shooting occurred, according to the White House.
Two Pulse staffers were killed during the massacre, the White House said.
Obama lauded the Senate after Republicans agreed to schedule votes on amendments that would mandate universal background checks for gun sales and prohibit individuals on terror watch lists from purchasing firearms.
"I hope that senators who voted no on background checks after Newtown have a change of heart," he said, referring to the 2012 mass shooting that killed 20 children in Connecticut. "And then I hope the House does the right thing and helps to end the plague of violence that these weapons inflict on so many lives."
It's unlikely, however, that the Senate amendments are going to clear the Republican-controlled Senate.
In a sign of the difficulties that the measures will face, Sen. John McCain said Obama is "directly responsible" for the Orlando attack.
Seeking to clarify his comments, McCain said in a later statement that he was "referring to President Obama’s national security decisions, not the president himself.
"I and others have long warned that the failure of the president’s policy to deny ISIL safe haven would allow the terrorist organization to inspire, plan, direct or conduct attacks on the United States and Europe as they have done in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino and now Orlando," he said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, another name for Daesh.
