Gun Control - Obama Presidency Oral History

Throughout the years of the Obama presidency, gun violence remained a central issue in American public life. On average, more than 30,000 people were killed by firearms each year, and the period was punctuated by a series of devastating mass shootings. Large majorities of the American public consistently supported policies to control firearm sales, and the Obama administration occasionally expended considerable political capital in their pursuit, but all attempts to enact significant gun control legislation failed in Congress. The Obama Presidency Oral History project provides detailed discussion of these efforts and failures, and offers new insight to the politics of gun violence and gun control in the United States during the Obama years.

Campaigning for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama staked out moderate positions on gun control and gun rights. He praised the Supreme Court’s recent decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), which ruled, for the first time, that the Second Amendment guarantees that individuals have a right to keep and bear arms, unrelated to their service in a militia. At the same time, Obama also called for “common sense” gun control measures, including a reinstatement of the 1994 assault weapons ban, new background checks to prevent those with criminal records from purchasing guns, restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons, and the closing of the “gun show loophole” that allowed customers to bypass background checks under certain circumstances. These positions were supported by a majority of voters in both the Democratic Party and the nation as a whole, but the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign against Obama, previewing the blanket opposition to gun control that would persist throughout the Obama years. 

Throughout his first term, Obama continued to express support for Second Amendment rights while encouraging Congress to pass common sense gun control measures. Certain of these measures were introduced, especially following mass shootings in Tucson, Arizona and Aurora, Colorado, but they struggled to gain traction. In fact, the gun-related bills Obama signed prior to his reelection actually reduced firearm restrictions, for instance by allowing more Americans to carry guns on national parks and wildlife refuges. In their oral history interviews, White House officials recount the administration’s approach to gun control during the first term, and situate gun control among other policy priorities. 

The administration’s approach to gun control and gun violence shifted radically in December 2012, after a gunman opened fire at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 children between the ages of six and seven, as well as six staff members. Obama spoke emotionally in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, committing to use the administrative and executive powers of the presidency to prevent future tragedies, and calling on Congress to pass serious, bipartisan gun control legislation. Five days after the shooting, he launched a task force, to be chaired by Vice President Biden, that would meet with stakeholders involved in the gun policy debate, and issue recommendations for legislative and executive action. In interviews across the project archive, narrators remember the impact of Sandy Hook on the administration, and describe the impetus for urgent action it created.