Former President Barack Obama told a crown in Brazil on Thursday that the gun laws in his own country “don’t make much sense.”
Speaking at the VTEX DAY digital innovation convention in Sao Paulo, Mr. Obama said the “most difficult day” during his two-term presidency was the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 elementary students and six staff members were gunned down.
“My daughters were only a little bit older than these young children that had been shot, and I had to go and comfort the parents. And some of you may be aware our gun laws in the United States don’t make much sense. Anybody can buy any weapon any time,” Mr. Obama said to a round of an applause, according to videos taken at the event.
“Without much, if any, regulation, they can buy it over the Internet, they can buy machine guns,” he said. “And for me, having to speak to parents who have lost a child, just two days or a day after it had happened, and not being able to assure them that that would change, that we would fix this — I couldn’t bring their children back, but I couldn’t even promise them that we would change the law so this didn’t happen to somebody else’s children.”
Mr. Obama’s comments come just weeks after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree easing restrictions on gun imports and increasing the amount of ammunition a person can buy. In January, Mr. Bolsonaro signed a decree making it easier for Brazilians to keep weapons at home without first demonstrating that they have a need to own a gun.
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