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Obama Calls For Gun Control Measures After San Bernardino, Calif., Shooting

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

And joining us now is national political correspondent Mara Liasson, who was at the White House today when President Obama was briefed about the shooting. And Mara, the president usually has something to say after these events. What was his reaction today?

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: He usually does have something to say, but today, instead of coming into the briefing room at the White House as he often does, he made his comments in a previously scheduled interview. He had one scheduled with CBS. He expressed his sympathies to the victims, of course, and said that we have a pattern of mass shootings in this country that doesn't happen with the same frequency in other countries. This is something he's said before, but it takes on greater weight as these events become more and more frequent. And here's what the president had to say in the interview he did with Norah O'Donnell of CBS.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BARACK OBAMA: The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world, and there are 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.

MCEVERS: And in the past, the president has used the shock of a mass shooting as a kind of political leverage to call for more gun safety measures. Do you see that happening now?

LIASSON: Well, he is calling for more gun safety measures. He's done this more than a dozen times after the shootings in Newtown and Tucson and Charleston and Fort Hood in Colorado Springs. I mean, it hasn't worked, but he is calling again for gun control measures like stronger background checks he pointed out today in that CBS interview. He said for those who are concerned about terrorism, there are people on the no-fly list that can't get on a plane, but they can walk into a store in the United States and buy a gun perfectly legally. He said that's a law that needs to be changed, and he called on lawmakers to come together at every level of government to take steps to make these events as rare as possible.

MCEVERS: That's national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Thank you so much.

LIASSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Mara Liasson is a national political correspondent for NPR. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, DC — focusing on the White House and Congress — and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.