President to speak on gun control, says White House official

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today that president Barack Obama will address the issue of gun control very soon but would not commit to a date. "I wouldn't rule out that at some point the president talks about the issues surrounding gun violence," Gibbs said, according to Washington Post reporters James Grimaldi and Perry Bacon Jr.

As president, Obama has never delivered substantive remarks on gun policy, "one of the most volatile and divisive domestic issues, out of fear of roiling swing voters in rural areas, the Midwest and the South," write Grimaldi and Perry. In the aftermath of the shooting in Arizona of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, both sides of the gun debate have spoken out. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said, "Once again, you and your freedoms are being blamed for the acts of a deranged madman, who sent signal after signal that he was dangerous." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who runs a gun-control group, said Obama "missed an opportunity to bring the country together on an issue that has support among the vast majority of Americans: fixing the nation's broken background-check system that is designed to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people." (Read more)