Obama cries as he pushes gun control at speech surrounded by families of mass shooting victims

US President Barack Obama put the weight of the
Newtown, Connecticut, shooting behind his newly
announced gun measures yesterday morning,
crying for the 20 school children who died in the
2012 massacre as he stood with their families.
'Every time I think about those kids it gets me
mad,' Obama said as tears rolled down his face.
Obama was introduced by Mark Barden, the
managing director of Sandy Hook Promise.
Barden’s son Daniel was killed in the Dec. 14,
2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Also on stage with Obama today: Jimmy Greene,
the father of Ana Grace, another child murdered
in the Newtown massacre.
'We do not have to accept this carnage as
the price of freedom,' Obama said, as he
stood before gun control activists, including
former representative Gabby Giffords, who
was shot point blank five years ago this
week and survived"
The president was flanked by gun violence
survivors and the families of others who were not
as fortunate as he spoke.
Peter Read, a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel
and the father of Mary Read, killed in the 2007
shooting at Virginia Tech, joined the president on
stage as did Jennifer Pinckney,the wife of
Reverend Clementa Pinckney, murdered at the
Emanuel AME in Charleston last year.
Obama pointedly lambasted Republicans decrying
his executive actions and told presidential
candidates, including Donald Trump, who have
characterized the new measures as the beginning
of the end, 'This is not a plot to take away
everybody's guns.'
'Contrary to the claims of what some gun rights
proponents have suggested, this hasn't been the
first step in some slippery slope to mass
confiscation,' Obama declared in remarks from
the East Room of the White House.
We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to
become scapegoats for President Obama’s failed
policies - NRA official Chris Cox
To those who are trying to 'twist' his words on
the Second Amendment, Obama reminded them, 'I
taught constitutional law.'
'I know a little bit about this,' he said. 'I get it.'
'But I also believe that we can find ways to
reduce gun violence consistent with the Second
Amendment,' he said.
The president berated lawmakers on Capitol Hill
for not doing more to keep guns out of the hands
of criminals and said, 'The gun lobby may be
holding Congress hostage right now but they are
not holding America hostage.'