Barack Obama to visit families of college shooting victims in Oregon

Washington, United States: President Barack Obama will travel to Oregon on 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 1 October that left nine people dead at the college in Roseburg, Oregon, before committing suicide as police cornered him. [caption id=“attachment_2456766” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Obama addressing the media after the Oregon shooting. AP[/caption] Just hours after the shooting, a stone-faced 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. 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 US 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. AFP