Obama: Two in attack possibly radicalized

He calls again for tougher laws on guns

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama edged closer Saturday to declaring the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., a terrorist attack, but he stuck to his prescription that gun limits are needed to stop such tragedies.

“It is entirely possible that these two attackers were radicalized to commit this act of terror,” Obama said in his weekly radio address, broadcast a day after the FBI declared it was treating the massacre of 14 people as an act of terror. “And if so, it would underscore a threat we’ve been focused on for years — the danger of people succumbing to violent extremist ideologies.”

Obama said investigators must be allowed to complete their work. But he cited the efforts of the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, to inspire people in Europe and the United States to stage terror attacks.

“We know that ISIL and other terrorist groups are actively encouraging people — around the world and in our country — to commit terrible acts of violence, oftentimes as lone- wolf actors,” the president said. “And even as we work to prevent attacks, all of us — government, law enforcement, communities, faith leaders — need to work together to prevent people from falling victim to these

hateful ideologies.”

Whatever their motives, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik — the husband and wife who authorities say walked into a conference center and killed 14 people, most of whom were Farook’s co-workers — had military-style firearms, Obama said.

“We know that the killers in San Bernardino used military-style assault weapons — weapons of war — to kill as many people as they could,” he said. “It’s another tragic reminder that here in America it’s way too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun.”

Obama repeated his administration’s insistence that Congress pass a law forbidding those on the government’s no-fly list from being able to buy a gun, a measure the Senate rejected Thursday in a 54-45 vote.

“Right now, people on the no-fly list can walk into a store and buy a gun. That is insane,” Obama said. “If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous, by definition, to buy a gun. And so I’m calling on Congress to close this loophole, now. We may not be able to prevent every tragedy, but — at a bare minimum — we shouldn’t be making it so easy for potential terrorists or criminals to get their hands on a gun that they could use against Americans.”

Obama also called on the country to uphold its values, which administration officials have said do not include efforts to discriminate against or demonize Muslims.

“We are strong. And we are resilient. And we will not be terrorized,” he said.

But Republican candidates for president demanded that the U.S. face up to a new world war, one that they said has threatened the safety of Americans and brought the menace of Islamic terrorism into the

homeland.

They accused Obama and his fellow Democrats of shrinking from an assault on the Islamic State and its tools for global recruitment.

“Our nation is under siege,” Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said at a cafe in Iowa on Friday. “What I believe we’re facing is the next world war. This is what we’re in right now, already.”

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said: “This nation needs a wartime president.

“Whether or not the current administration realizes it or is willing to acknowledge it, our enemies are at war with us.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush described the looming threat of “Islamic terrorism that wants to destroy our way of life, wants to attack our freedom.”

He added: “They have declared war on us. And we need to declare war on them.”

In Sioux City, Iowa, on Friday, Democratic presidential

candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke not of war but of the need to ferret out “those folks who are on the Internet radicalizing people” and called for fighting “terrorist networks” from the air and from the ground. Clinton also urged sensitivity toward Muslims.

Gun control was the focus of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who Friday clamored for expanded background checks and the closure of gun-purchasing “loopholes.”

In Greenland, N.H., Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida on Friday criticized the stance of the president and the Democratic candidates.

“Forty-eight hours after this is over, they’re still out there talking about gun-control measures,” said Rubio. “As if somehow terrorists care about what our gun laws are.

“France has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, and they have no problem acquiring an arsenal to kill people,” he said, evoking the terror attacks in Paris three

weeks ago.

The New York Times used space on its front page to call for greater gun regulation.

Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said the newspaper ran its first Page 1 editorial since 1920 on Saturday to “deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country’s inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns.”

The Times’ editorial suggests drastically reducing the number of firearms and even “eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.”

On Friday, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. urged students, staff and faculty at his Christian school to get permits to carry concealed weapons on campus to counter any attack similar to the deadly rampage in California last week.

“Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here,” Falwell told an estimated 10,000 people at convocation in Lynchburg, Va. “I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in.”

On Saturday, Falwell said he was specifically referring to Farook and Malik.

Falwell also said he believed the campus needed to be prepared in the face of the increasing frequency of mass killings. He cited, for example, the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which happened less than 100 miles southwest of Liberty.

“What if just one of those students or one of those faculty members had a concealed permit and was carrying a weapon when the shooter walked into Virginia Tech? Countless lives could have been saved,” he said.