This Article is From Oct 06, 2015

Barack Obama to Visit Relatives of Oregon Shooting Victims

Barack Obama to Visit Relatives of Oregon Shooting Victims

File Photo: United States President Barack Obama.

Washington: President Barack Obama will travel to Oregon Friday to meet with relatives of the victims of the Umpqua Community College shooting, a White House official told AFP.

A gunman went on a shooting rampage on October 1 that left nine people dead at the college in Roseburg, Oregon, before committing suicide as police cornered him.

Just hours after the shooting, a stone-faced President Barack Obama gave a press conference in which he blasted the opposition Republican-controlled Congress for opposing "any kind of common sense gun legislation."

He later warned that failure to act on gun control was a "political decision," and vowed to keep pushing for reform after America's latest mass shooting.

President Barack Obama "will travel to Roseburg, Oregon to visit privately with families of victims of the shooting," a White House official said late Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The shooting, the latest in a string of similar attacks in recent years at colleges and schools in the United States, has revived a fierce debate on gun control.

The last mass shooting at a United States school took place in 2012 when 20 elementary school students and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The president had already scheduled a four day trip over the weekend to the west coast, mainly aimed at raising funds for his Democratic party.
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