11 times Obama addressed the nation after shooting deaths

President Obama was visibly frustrated by U.S. inaction on gun control laws, after a shooter opened fire at a community college in Oregon Thursday and killed ten people.

"Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine, my response here at this podium ends up being routine, the conversation in the aftermath of it, we've become numb to this," Mr. Obama said late Thursday. "It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun."

"Our thoughts and prayers are not enough," the president continued. "It's not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America," the president said in a statement from the White House briefing room.

He pointed to countries like Great Britain and Australia, which have passed laws to prevent mass shootings: "The notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens, and criminals will still get their guns - it's not borne out by the evidence."

"Somebody somewhere will comment and say, 'Obama politicized this issue,'" the president said. "This is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic."

The president has commented on mass shootings on U.S. soil 11 times.

Chattanooga, Tennessee, Jul. 16

On July 16, President Obama commented on the deaths of four Marines who were shot by a lone gunman at a Chattanooga military facility.

"It is a heartbreaking circumstance for these individuals who have served our country with great valor to be killed in this fashion. And although their families are still in the process of being contacted, I want them to know that I speak for the American people in expressing our deepest condolences and knowing that they have our full support as they try to overcome the grief that's involved here," the president said from the Oval Office, where he had been briefed on the shooting by FBI Director James Comey.

Charleston, South Carolina, Jun. 17

President Obama gave a somber address on June 18, 2015, a day after the murders of nine people at a Charleston, South Carolina church.

"I've had to make statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure too many tragedies like this too many times," Mr. Obama told reporters after 21-year-old Dylann Roof opened fire on a historically black congregation and killed nine people. "We don't have all the facts, but we do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who had wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun."

"Now is the time for mourning and for healing, but let's be clear: at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," the president continued. "It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency and it is in our power to do something about it."

The president criticized Washington politics for "foreclos[ing] a lot of those avenues right now," but said that it would be "wrong for us not to acknowledge" methods to protect against gun violence. The president added that it would be important for America "to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively."

Overland, Park, Kansas, Apr. 14, 2014

After a former Ku Klux Klan leader and white supremacist opened fire and killed three people at a Jewish community center in Kansas on April 14, 2014, President Obama denounced the attack, saying "no one should fear for their safety when they go to pray."

"Nobody should have to worry about their security when gathering with their fellow believers," Mr. Obama said at an Easter prayer breakfast at the White House the day after the murders. "No one should have to fear for their safety when they go to pray...We've got to stand united against this kind of terrible violence which has no place in our society.

The violence was "all the more painful," Mr. Obama said, because it occurred as the community was preparing to celebrate Passover and as Christians were observing Palm Sunday.

Fort Hood, Texas, Apr. 2, 2014

President Obama addressed the nation after a second shooting at Fort Hood on April 2, 2014, calling to mind the fatalities at the Texas base from 2009.

"Any shooting is trouble. Obviously, this reopens the pain of what happened Fort Hood five years ago," the president said, after a mentally ill soldier opened fire and killed three people and injuring several others.

"We're heartbroken that something like this might have happened again," Mr. Obama said. "I want to just assure all of us we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened."

In a hastily arranged statement made in Chicago, the president reflected on the sacrifices that troops stationed at Fort Hood have made - including enduring multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They serve with valor. They serve with distinction, and when they're at their home base, they need to feel safe," Mr. Obama said. "We don't yet know what happened tonight, but obviously that sense of safety has been broken once again."

Washington, DC, Sept. 16, 2013

President Obama spoke in September 2013 after a shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. left 12 people dead and eight more wounded, saying "there's nothing inevitable about" mass gun violence.

"Sometimes I fear there is a creeping resignation that these tragedies are just somehow the way it is, that this is somehow the new normal. We cannot accept this," Mr. Obama said.

He said no other advanced nation endures the kind of gun violence seen in the United States, and blamed mass shootings in America on laws that fail "to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people."

"What's different in America is it's easy to get your hands on a gun," he said. He acknowledged "the politics are difficult," a lesson he learned after failing to get expanded background checks for gun buyers through the Democratic-controlled Senate this spring.

Newtown, Connecticut, Dec. 14, 2012

After 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 schoolchildren and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, President Obama delivered an address from a White House briefing room.

"As a country, we have been through this too many times," the president said the day of the Newtown, Connecticut shooting. "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."

"We've endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years," he continued. "And each time I learn the news I react not as a president, but as anybody else would -- as a parent. And that was especially true today. I know there's not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do."

Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Aug. 5, 2012

Less than three weeks after the massacre in Aurora, Colorado, another deadly shooting took place at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on August 6, 2012. The gunman, 40-year-old Wade Michael Page, shot and killed six people, wounding four others.

"I think all of us recognize that these kinds of terrible events are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul searching and examine additional ways we can reduce violence," President Obama said, following a bill signing in the Oval Office, the day after the shooting.

"I think it will be very important for us to reaffirm once again that in this country, regardless of what we look like, where we come from, who we worship, we are all one people and we look after one another and we respect one another," he continued.

Aurora, Colorado, Jul. 20, 2012

After a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado left 12 people dead and dozens more injured on July 20, 2012, President Obama led a moment of silence that day.

"There are going to be other days for politics," Mr. Obama said at a campaign stop in Ft. Myers, Florida. "This, I think, is a day for prayer and reflection."

The shooter, James Holmes, had attacked a Century 16 movie theater during a midnight film screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" with tear gas and multiple firearms. Holmes was later sentenced to life in prison.

"We may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings," the president said after the massacre. "If there's anything to take away from this tragedy it's the reminder that life is very fragile... Our time here is limited and it is precious."

Tuscon, Arizona, Jan. 8, 2011

A gunman killed six people and wounded 13 others, including then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in a shooting spree outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona on January 8, 2011.

In a statement released the day of the shooting, the president said that "such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society."

President Obama delivered a memorial speech on January 12 at the University of Arizona campus, steering away from partisan rhetoric and calling on the nation "to expand our moral imaginations."

"If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost," Mr. Obama said. "Let's make sure it's not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle."

Doctors say Jared Lee Loughner, who has been sentenced to life in prison, suffered from schizophrenia.

Fort Hood, Texas, Nov. 5, 2009

President Obama addressed the nation after a massacre at Texas' Fort Hood Army Post on November 5, 2009, calling it a "horrific outburst of violence."

Thirteen people were killed and 31 wounded by the shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, a military psychiatrist.

"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas," the president said. "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

"My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded, and with the families of the fallen, and with those who live and serve at Fort Hood," he said on the day of the shooting at the Department of the Interior in Washington, where he had been scheduled to give remarks.

Comments on shootings on foreign soil

President Obama has also publicly commented on three attacks that occurred off U.S. soil:

1. Obama condemned the Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine's headquarters on January 7, 2015, calling the shootings "cowardly and evil."

He spoke to French President Hollande to express his sympathies for the attack in Paris Wednesday. In remarks before a meeting with Secretary Kerry and Vice President Biden, Mr. Obama said, "The fact that this was an attack on journalists, an attack on our free press, also underscores the degree to which these terrorists fear freedom of speech, freedom of the press."

He continued, "A universal belief in freedom of expression is something that can't be silenced because of the senseless violence of the few." The president promised the U.S. would stand with France and said that U.S. counterterrorism was providing assistance to the French to help hunt for those responsible for the shooting.

2. After two U.S. airmen were shot and killed on March 3, 2011, the president told reporters he was "saddened and outraged" by the attacks.

"We will spare no effort in learning how this outrageous attack took place," he said, adding that the United States is working with German authorities.

"We don't have all the information yet, and you will be fully briefed when we get more information, but this is a stark reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our men and women in uniform are making all around the world to keep us safe, and the dangers that they face all around the globe," Obama said.

3. Obama spoke to reporters on September 1, 2010 about shootings in the West Bank that led to the deaths of four Jewish settlers.

"There are going to be extremists and rejectionists who, rather than seeking peace, are going to be seeking destruction," the president said after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "And the tragedy that we saw yesterday where people were gunned down on the street by terrorists who are purposely trying to undermine these talks is an example of what we're up against. But I want everybody to be very clear: The United States is going to be unwavering in its support of Israel's security and we are going to push back against these kinds of terrorist activities."

Comments after the deaths of unarmed black teens

President Obama has spoken twice after the death of unarmed black teenagers in the United States:

1. On Trayvon Martin, March 23, 2012

President Obama spoke on March 23, 2012 about the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American boy in Florida, calling it a "tragedy."

"I can only imagine what these parents are going through," Mr. Obama said from the White House Rose Garden, "and when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids, and I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together, federal, state and local, to figure out how this tragedy happened."

He addressed the nation nearly a month after the confrontation in a Sanford, Florida gated community, when neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot the unarmed Martin.

"You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," the president said. ""All of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen...and that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened as well as the specifics of the incident."

2. On Michael Brown, August 14, 2014

Racial tensions flared in Ferguson, Missouri after Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot by a police officer on August 9, 2014.

President Obama, speaking days after the 18-year-old was killed, commented on the confrontations between community members and police officers, acknowledging that "emotions are raw."

"Now's the time for peace and calm," the president said from Martha's Vineyard, where he was on vacation. "Now's the time for an open and transparent process to see that justice is done."