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Obama on latest mass shooting: This has no parallel

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“We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world,” President Barack Obama said. | Getty

By Nolan D. McCaskill and Eliza Collins

Updated:

President Barack Obama decried a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, that left at least 14 people dead and 17 wounded on Wednesday, saying there is “no parallel” to the gun violence that has plagued the United States.

“We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world,” said Obama, who expressed his sympathies to the victims, in a CBS News interview with Norah O’Donnell that was taped as information about the situation was developing. “And there’s some steps we could take, not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as frequently.”

Obama expressed frustration at the still-stalled effort to enact new gun controls. The U.S. has no-fly lists, he noted, but those same people can go anywhere in the country and purchase a firearm. “And there’s nothing that we can do stop them,” said Obama, echoing his repeated calls for Congress to pass common-sense gun safety laws and stronger background checks.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said up to three people had entered a county building and opened fire with long guns. After fleeing in a vehicle that was stopped by police hours later, two suspects (a male and a female) were dead, apparently shot by police. A third person has been detained. An officer was injured but not in critical condition.

The two suspects were dressed in “assault-style clothing,” both armed with assault-style rifles and hand guns, the police chief said. A shelter-in-place order for the neighborhood was lifted, but FBI officers remained on the scene at a house in nearby Redlands, Calif.

The FBI said there is a possibility that the shooting was terrorism.

“I am still not willing to say that we know that for sure,” said David Bowdich, the assistant director for the Los Angeles FBI, adding that they were “making some movements that it is a possibility.”

The Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press reported that one of the dead suspects was named Syed Farook. According to CNN, Farook has ties to the event that was attacked and was identified as an employee at the county health department. He was described as an American citizen.

Citing federal law-enforcement officials, the Los Angeles Times reported that a dispute at a holiday party at the county facility, which provides services to people with developmental disabilities, may have sparked the violence.

The police chief said somebody did leave the holiday event, “but we have no idea if those are the people that came back.”

Burguan described the county building as a “massive facility” that employs hundreds of people.

A Justice Department official said Attorney General Loretta Lynch has been briefed by the FBI and is monitoring the situation.

The shooting comes less than a week after a man killed three and wounded nine more in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The suspect, Robert Lewis Dear, 59, appeared in court Monday and faces multiple charges of first-degree murder.

Gun safety issues have marked much of Obama’s presidency, and prompted a major reform push after the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adults. The legislative effort ultimately fell apart, with reform advocates continually pleading for action as the number of mass shootings pile up. The Washington Post reported Friday that more mass shootings had occurred than days in the year — 351 mass shootings in 334 days.

In the interview with CBS, Obama said Wednesday’s shooting is yet another call to action.

“We don’t yet know what the motives of the shooters are, but what we do know is, is that there are steps we can take to make Americans safer and that we should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal,” he said. “We should never think that this is something that just happens in the ordinary course of events, because it doesn’t happen with the same frequency in other countries.”

It’s not clear, however, that gun reform has any better chance now than it has in the recent past. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday called for a moment of silence for the victims of the San Bernardino shooting during the Capitol Christmas tree lighting ceremony, but offered no word on any legislative action.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, plan to force a vote on keeping guns out of the hands of people convicted of violating laws that protect the entrances of health care clinics, in response to last week’s shooting in Colorado.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has introduced the amendment, which would prevent gun ownership by people who have been convicted of misdemeanors under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prevents violent obstruction or harassment at clinics.

The politics are also complicated by the 2016 presidential race, with Republicans reluctant to alienate gun rights advocates. Candidates on both sides of the aisle sent their condolences via Twitter on Wednesday afternoon to those impacted by the shooting:

Ben Carson, speaking at a press conference in South Carolina, called the mass shooting a “hate crime.”

“Look at what happened,” he said at a press conference in South Carolina. “Again, another hate crime in San Bernardino today, at least 14 people were killed. Less than a week ago, we had the shooting in Colorado. And look at all the things going on around the world, ISIS and groups like this, just hatred and evil. We need to be able to combat these things, because otherwise we will melt into despair, and that’s not who we are.”

Asked to explain why he said the shooting should be classified as a hate crime, Carson replied, “It’s hard to imagine you would shoot a bunch of people if you didn’t hate them, right? You don’t do that to people you love.”

Sarah Wheaton, Hanna Trudo and Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.