Obama to meet families of San Bernardino shooting victims
US President Barack Obama will meet with families of victims of the recent mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, the White House says.
Obama will make a brief stop in San Bernardino on Friday before heading to Hawaii, where he will spend the Christmas holidays, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.
Repeating the role of "consoler-in-chief" after mass shootings, Obama will meet the victims privately and the press will not be given access, Earnest said.
On December 2, a couple armed with rifles and handguns attacked a center for people with disabilities in San Bernardino, killing 14 people and wounding 21 others in the deadliest mass shooting in the United States in three years.
After the attack, the American president urged tighter gun control laws in the country, arguing that such attacks have no parallel and only occur in the US.
He described the massacre as "another American community shattered by unspeakable violence" and added that the tragedy was a reminder of the need to make it harder for criminals to get guns.
Obama has so far failed to convince Congress to pass tougher gun laws despite a series of mass shootings during his time in office.
Following another mass shooting in October, Obama tasked White House lawyers to find new ways to address gun violence issue.
Obama said it was "insane" that Americans on the "no-fly list" are not banned from buying guns. "If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous, by definition, to buy a gun."
Today, it is estimated that there are between 270 million and 300 million guns in the US, about one per individual.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), firearms are the cause of death for more than 33,000 people in the United States every year, a number that includes accidental discharge, murder and suicides, which are on the increase.
The number of intentional homicides by guns was 11,208 in 2013, the last year for which US health authorities have statistics.
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