Obama tells BBC he is
‘most frustrated’ with
failure to get tougher gun
laws
President Obama speaks during first lady Michelle Obama's Reach Higher initiative in the East Room of the White House on July 23, 2015. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
President Obama in an interview with the BBC said that the issue on which he feels "most frustrated" is the failure to adopt tougher gun-control laws despite a series of mass shootings from movie theaters to elementary schools to military installations to a church.
But he vowed to continue to press the issue during his remaining time in office.
"If you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I've been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient commonsense gun safety laws even in the face of repeated mass killings," Obama said.
"If you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism it's less than 100," the president added. "If you look at the number killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands. And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that's distressing but it's not something I intend to stop working on in the remaining 18 months."
The BBC released excerpts of the interview which is scheduled to be broadcast at 11 pm EST.
The British television network said that Obama also said that a political solution was needed in Syria so that forces could concentrate on defeating the Islamic State. Obama also said that he was confident that the Iran nuclear deal would survive scrutiny by Congress and that Britain should maintain its status in the European Union in order to keep its influence.
Obama gave the interview Thursday afternoon before departing for a trip to Kenya and Ethiopia.
Talking about how he felt about a string of accomplishments since the 2014 elections, Obama said, "One of my strengths is I have a pretty even temperament. I don't get too high when it's high and I don't get too low when it's low."
Steven Mufson covers the White House. Since joining The Post, he has covered economics, China, foreign policy and energy.