*Administration of Barack Obama, 2015 *

**Statement on the Shootings in Colorado Springs, Colorado **

*November 28, 2015 *

The last thing Americans should have to do, over the holidays or any day, is comfort the families of people killed by gun violence, people who woke up in the morning and bid their loved ones goodbye with no idea it would be for the last time. And yet, 2 days after Thanksgiving, that's what we are forced to do again.

We don't yet know what this particular gunman's so-called motive was for shooting 12 people, or for terrorizing an entire community, when he opened fire with an assault weapon and took hostages at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado. What we do know is that he killed a cop in the line of duty, along with two of the citizens that police officer was trying to protect. We know that law enforcement saved lives, as so many of them do every day, all across America. And we know that more Americans and their families had fear forced upon them.

This is not normal. We can't let it become normal. If we truly care about this—if we're going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience—then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough.

May God bless Officer Garrett Swasey and the Americans he tried to save, and may He grant the rest of us the courage to do the same thing.

NOTE: The statement referred to Robert Lewis Dear, suspected gunman in the shootings; and Jennifer Markovsky and Ke'Arre Stewart, who were killed in the shootings.

*Categories:* Statements by the President : Colorado Springs, CO, shootings*.*

*Names:* Dear, Robert Lewis; Markovsky, Jennifer; Stewart, Ke'Arre; Swasey, Garrett*.*

*Subjects:* Colorado : Shootings in Colorado Springs; Planned Parenthood.

*DCPD Number:* DCPD201500845.