Obama Continues Campaign Style Photo Ops to Push Gun Control

Today's CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing reports that Obama added a photo-op session with selected law enforcement leadership to his schedule to keep the Newtown shooting in the forefront of the public's mind. He hopes the pubic will in turn apply pressure to congress to pass his gun control agenda.

Obama and Biden are meeting in the Roosevelt Room now with a group of police chiefs and county sheriffs, including the top cops in the three places with the past year’s most highly publicized mass shootings: Newtown, Conn. (26 murdered at an elementary school in December); Aurora, Colo. (12 murdered at the movies in July); and Oak Creek, Wis. (six killed at a Sikh temple in August).

The telegenic session was added to the president’s schedule just this morning as part of his effort to maintain public sentiment in favor of the most ambitious aspects of his gun control agenda: legislation establishing universal background checks for weapons buyers, banning military-style rifles and outlawing large-capacity ammunition clips. (The only public event on Obama’s schedule would otherwise have been a photo-op with the NBA champion Miami Heat in the East Room at 1:40.)

With a month and a half having passed since the school shooting, and at least one recent poll indicating the public has more pressing concerns than gun control, expect the President to continue these type of campaign style photo-ops and events in an attempt to keep the public focused on his agenda.