Former President Barack Obama urged Americans not to be paralyzed in the wake of another mass shooting this week, which killed two children and injured at least 17 others after an assailant attacked a Catholic Church in Minneapolis.
Authorities say the 23-year-old suspect fired through the windows of Annunciation Church, which also houses a school, aiming at the people sitting in pews and taking the lives of an 8-year-old and 10-year-old.
“We can’t allow ourselves to become numb to mass shootings,” Obama said in an Aug. 27 statement posted across multiple social media platforms.
“What happened today in Minneapolis is heartbreaking, and Michelle and I are praying for the parents who have lost a child or will be sitting at their hospital bedside after yet another act of unspeakable, unnecessary violence.”
Obama faced dozens of similar incidents while in office, such as the Tucson congressional event shooting in 2011 that injured former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords; two separate shootings at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009 and again in 2014; the Aurora movie theater shooting in 2012; and the Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016 that claimed 49 lives and injured 53 others, which he called an “act of terror.”
In 2012, Obama shed tears while speaking at the White House after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 20 children between ages six and seven, and six adults.
“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years,” Obama said at the time. “And each time I learn the news, I react not as president, but as anybody else would: as a parent. And that was especially true today. I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do.”
Democrats to call for gun control measures as Vance defends prayer
During his last full year as president, Obama tried to tackle gun violence calling it the “one piece of unfinished business” of his administration.
But his emotional appeals and political lifting repeatedly failed to muster enough support in Congress as he was continually thwarted by Republicans and other gun rights advocates who argued it was wrongheaded to regulate firearms for law-abiding citizens.
Several Democratic officials, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, are scheduled to hold an Aug. 28 news conference to “call for action, including a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines,” according to a media release announcing the event.
A prayer service for peace and healing is also being held at Cathedral of Saint Paul where hundreds of mourners have already flocked to honor the victims and mourn with their families at an Aug. 27 vigil. Some liberal commentators, however, have lashed out in response to the shooting, saying calls for prayer are tone deaf responses given the victims were inside a church.
“Prayer is not freaking enough,” Jen Psaki, a former White House press secretary during the Biden administration, said in an Aug. 27 post on X. “Prayers does not end school shootings. (P)rayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”
Those comments drew a rebuke from Vice President JD Vance, who said in response that Psaki’s message was attacking people for praying.
“We pray because our hearts are broken,” Vance said in an Aug. 28 post. “We pray because we know God listens. We pray because we know that God works in mysterious ways, and can inspire us to further action.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: U.S. can’t ‘become numb to mass shootings,’ Obama says
