SAN FRANCISCO — Saying he “will refuse to act like this is the new normal,” President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to the nation’s mayors Friday for a rational discussion of gun policy reforms in the wake of this week’s mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.
“These tragedies have become far too commonplace, and few people understand the terrible toll of gun violence like mayors do,” the president told the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors at the Hilton hotel near Union Square.
Perhaps things would be different had Congress passed common-sense reforms after 2012’s schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, he said as a grave silence engulfed the audience.
“We don’t know if that would’ve prevented what happened in Charleston,” he said. “But we might still have more Americans with us. … Some families might still be whole.”
The president had said Thursday that he and the first lady knew some of the nine people killed in Wednesday night’s shooting at a Charleston church, including its well-liked pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney.
Obama got the loudest claps and cheers on Friday when he said there was still hope for comprehensive national firearms legislation.
“We should be able to talk about this issue as citizens. We should be able to talk about it without demonizing gun owners, the overwhelming majority of whom are law-abiding,” Obama told the mayors. “At some point as a country we have to reckon with what happens. It is not good enough to simply show sympathy.
“We need to have a conversation about it and fix this,” he added. “Ultimately, Congress acts when the public demands action.”
Gun control advocates had hoped that would happen after the Newtown shooting, when Democrats and the White House aggressively pushed for new gun laws. But even universal background checks — something polls showed as many as nine in 10 Americans supported — ultimately failed in the Senate.
Many mayors in the audience on Friday seemed to give Obama credit for not giving up.
“I thought his remarks were spot on,” Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said after the speech. “The president is saying, “Look, you can’t shy away from these topics; we have got to have real conversation.’ It doesn’t mean that one side has the answer, but there is something going on and we don’t want that to be the new norm.”
Johnson and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said they agreed with Obama that the country’s mayors had a responsibility to keep pushing the gun issue.
“I think we’ve got to make this a priority,” he said. “Otherwise it’ll be crying and sorrow every time these unfortunate things happen.”
Obama also spoke to the mayors about moving ahead with priorities such as job creation and training, early-childhood education, college access and affordability, affordable housing and more at the city and state level while Congress seems deadlocked on many.
“On America’s most important economic priorities … cities are not standing still,” he said, thanking the mayors “for your leadership and your vision.”
Before addressing the mayors, Obama met briefly and privately with Gov. Jerry Brown to discuss federal, state and local efforts to deal with California’s drought and wildfires — a follow-up to a discussion the president had a week earlier with Western governors.
After the speech, Obama attended two fundraisers — one for the Democratic National Committee, the other for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The DCCC event was hosted by Tom Steyer, the hedge fund billionaire turned environmentalist, and wife Kat Taylor in San Francisco’s Sea Cliff neighborhood.
During remarks to several dozen of the Bay Area’s well-heeled, Obama repeated some of the same themes in his speech to the mayors.
“These mass shootings do not happen in other advanced countries around the world,” he said.
Obama was scheduled to spend Friday night in San Francisco before flying to Palm Springs on Saturday morning.
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
