Why Obama cried over gun control

Editor’s Note: Mel Robbins is a CNN commentator, legal analyst, best-selling author and keynote speaker. In 2014, she was named outstanding news talk-radio host by the Gracie Awards. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. Watch President Obama as he joins Anderson Cooper and a live audience for a CNN prime-time event: “Guns in America,” at 8 p.m. ET Thursday.

I’ve always believed that if you and I were forced to see the scene inside the Sandy Hook elementary school in the moments after Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adult staff members – instead of shown photos of the killer– we’d be moved to tears and inspired to act.

Today, surrounded by people whose lives were rocked by gun violence, Obama made an emotional plea about guns. He talked about victims – from Columbine to the streets of Chicago. He said he got “mad” when he thought about “those kids.”

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Updated 10:07 PM EST, Tue January 5, 2016

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Obama's emotional gun control speech in 90 seconds

01:40 - Source: CNN

And he began to cry when he talked about the slaughter at Sandy Hook. He took a heavy pause, and he got in touch with the real story – the human one. He put politics aside and reminded us what this is really all about.

Mel Robbins

Weeping over the shooting death of children – of anyone – is appropriate and important. That this is noteworthy when someone does this in public says a lot about where America is. Someone had to do it.

We are so accustomed to gun violence that we have become inured to it – numb. It’s easier.

The President cried because he allowed himself to feel something no one wants to feel: the tremendous pain of losing someone you love, the shame of knowing you did nothing to prevent it and the relief that overcomes you when you commit to changing. Obama is not numb – when you’re numb you do nothing.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) holds his weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill on December 10, 2015 in Washington, D.C.

Related article Who are Paul Ryan and Republicans kidding on gun control?

Instead of changing the channel, offering “condolences” on Twitter or sending prayers during television appearances, as many politicians have done when there is another slaughter, the President sent a message.

Today, among other things, he introduced a new requirement mandating that individuals “in the business of selling firearms” register as licensed gun dealers, effectively narrowing the so-called “gun show loophole,” which exempts most small sellers from keeping formal sales records.

Is it enough? No. Will it stop the next shooter? Perhaps. What we do know is doing nothing is no longer acceptable. And we have to start somewhere.

Parents wait for news after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday, February 14. At least 17 people were killed at the school, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said. The suspect, 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz, is in custody, the sheriff said. The sheriff said he was expelled for unspecified disciplinary reasons.

Investigators at the scene of a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, November 5, 2017. A man opened fire inside the small community church, killing at least 25 people and an unborn child. The gunman, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, was found dead in his vehicle. He was shot in the leg and torso by an armed citizen, and he had a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, authorities said.

A couple huddles after shots rang out at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday, October 1, 2017. At least 58 people were killed and almost 500 were injured when a gunman opened fire on the crowd. Police said the gunman, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, fired from the Mandalay Bay hotel, several hundred feet southwest of the concert grounds. He was found dead in his hotel room, and authorities believe he killed himself and that he acted alone. It is the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

Police direct family members away from the scene of a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016. Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire inside the club, killing at least 49 people and injuring more than 50. Police fatally shot Mateen during an operation to free hostages that officials say he was holding at the club.

In December 2015, two shooters killed 14 people and injured 21 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, where employees with the county health department were attending a holiday event. The shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, were later killed in a shootout with authorities. The pair were found to be radicalized extremists who planned the shootings as a terror attack, investigators said.

Police search students outside Umpqua Community College after a deadly shooting at the school in Roseburg, Oregon, in October 2015. Nine people were killed and at least nine were injured, police said. The gunman, Chris Harper-Mercer, committed suicide after exchanging gunfire with officers, a sheriff said.

A man kneels across the street from the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, following a shooting in June 2015. Police say the suspect, Dylann Roof, opened fire inside the church, killing nine people. According to police, Roof confessed and told investigators he wanted to start a race war. He was eventually convicted of murder and hate crimes, and a jury recommended the death penalty.

Police officers walk on a rooftop at the Washington Navy Yard after a shooting rampage in the nation's capital in September 2013. At least 12 people and suspect Aaron Alexis were killed, according to authorities.

Connecticut State Police evacuate Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Adam Lanza opened fire in the school, killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Police said he also shot and killed his mother in her Newtown home.

James Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a July 2012 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Twelve people were killed and dozens were wounded when Holmes opened fire during the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises." He was sentenced to 12 life terms plus thousands of years in prison.

A military jury convicted Army Maj. Nidal Hasan of 13 counts of premeditated murder for a November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. Thirteen people died and 32 were injured.

Jiverly Wong shot and killed 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York, before turning the gun on himself in April 2009, police said. Four other people were injured at the immigration center shooting. Wong had been taking English classes at the center.

Pallbearers carry a casket of one of Michael McLendon's 10 victims. McLendon shot and killed his mother in her Kingston, Alabama, home, before shooting his aunt, uncle, grandparents and five more people. He shot and killed himself in Samson, Alabama, in March 2009.

Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree on the school's campus in April 2007. Cho killed two people at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and, after chaining the doors closed, killed another 30 at Norris Hall, home to the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department. He wounded an additional 17 people before killing himself.

Mark Barton walked into two Atlanta trading firms and fired shots in July 1999, leaving nine dead and 13 wounded, police said. Hours later, police found Barton at a gas station in Acworth, Georgia, where he pulled a gun and killed himself. The day before, Barton had bludgeoned his wife and his two children in their Stockbridge, Georgia, apartment, police said.

Eric Harris, left, and Dylan Klebold brought guns and bombs to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999. The students gunned down 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves.

In October 1991, George Hennard crashed his pickup through the plate-glass window of Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, before shooting 23 people and committing suicide.

James Huberty shot and killed 21 people, including children, at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, in July 1984. A police sharpshooter killed Huberty an hour after the rampage began.

Prison guard George Banks is led through the Luzerne County courthouse in 1985. Banks killed 13 people, including five of his children, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in September 1982. He was sentenced to death in 1993 and received a stay of execution in 2004. His death sentence was overturned in 2010.

Officers in Austin, Texas, carry victims across the University of Texas campus after Charles Joseph Whitman opened fire from the school's tower, killing 16 people and wounding 30 in 1966. Police officers shot and killed Whitman, who had killed his mother and wife earlier in the day.

Howard Unruh, a World War II veteran, shot and killed 13 of his neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, in 1949. Unruh barricaded himself in his house after the shooting. Police overpowered him the next day. He was ruled criminally insane and committed to a state mental institution.

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It was the victims of Sandy Hook and the letters of kids across the country begging the President to act that helped him make this calculation. It was the pain of loss that should move us all to act.

Kids have a knack for simplifying issues. Adults make gun control complicated. It’s not complicated at all: Bad guys shouldn’t get guns and adults should do whatever we can to make sure they don’t.

The Second Amendment specifically authorizes a “well regulated” militia – not an unregulated one. The NRA may object, as it always does, to any action taken to control the proliferation of weapons across the country, including President Obama’s actions today.

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Updated 10:07 PM EST, Tue January 5, 2016

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President Obama Announces Executive Action on Guns

06:03 - Source: CNN

But 87% of Republicans support universal background checks and closing the gun show loopholes. That includes 84% of all gun owners. As the President said, it’s “simple math.”

We’ve let ourselves be held hostage by the gun lobby – by politicians who care more about money to fill their re-election coffers than about doing what’s right. As my 10-year-old would say: That’s stupid.

Today, Obama did something smart. He calculated the “simple math” that actually matters. A CNN analysis found that from 2001 to 2013, 406,496 people died by firearms on U.S. soil. Too many innocent Americans are dying and that number includes way too many kids.

The thought of another Newtown happening – be honest: You know it could – is a calculation you’ve already made yourself. Should this not make every American weep?

Gun reform is coming, despite what the NRA and Republican presidential candidates will tell you. And just as in prior civil rights movements, justice and sanity will prevail.

But the President didn’t take executive action because he wanted to win some political game.

He did so because he allowed himself to get real about the cost of our cowardice.

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