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As President Obama plans to visit the small Connecticut town touched by tragedy, a fight over gun control laws is simmering in Washington.
The White House has not confirmed when Obama will travel to Newtown, but Marine One and members of the President’s advance team were spotted in the area on Saturday.
The mayor of nearby Danbury told constituents on Twitter that a presidential visit was still being planned but would likely happen in a few days.
A day after the most emotional speech of his presidency, Obama used his weekly address to pay tribute to those slain in the Newtown elementary school.
We grieve for the families of those we lost. And we keep in our prayers the parents of those who survived,” Obama said Saturday.
Obama then again pledged to take “meaningful action” to curtail gun violence, though he has not said what specifically. But discussions about gun control are sure to dominate Washington in the days ahead, perhaps even displacing the looming fiscal cliff as the capital’s current obsession.
Several Democrats — including New York Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler — have started beating the drum for Obama to take up gun control now, a position supported by many left-leaning activists who worked tirelessly for the President’s reelection last month.
Moreover, a powerful political force warned that he would use his growing influence and perhaps his billions to take on the controversial issue. Mayor Bloomberg, who spent millions supporting anti-gun candidates this fall, challenged Obama to immediately support stricter firearms legislation.
He will also appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday and tweeted out links to a website named “Demand a Plan,” which launched after the July shooting in Colorado and exhorts voters to pressure Congress and the White House into changing the law.
But many Democrats are fearful of touching gun control, long one of politics’ “third-rail” issues. And while the powerful National Rifle Association has stayed silent since the Newtown shooting, several influential conservative voices have made it clear that they do not believe guns are at the center of the tragedy.
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