President Obama declared in an interview aired Sunday that the Dec. 14 shooting massacre in Newtown, Conn., "was the worst day of my presidency" as he sought to rally public support for lawmakers seeking tougher gun controls.
"Anybody who was up in Newtown ... understands that something fundamental in America has to change. And all of us have to do some soul searching, including me as president, that we allow a situation in which 20 precious small children are getting gunned down in a classroom," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Obama said he will support legislation that increases background checks on gun buyers and bans assault weapons and high-capacity clips.
These are proposals "that I have historically supported and will continue to support," Obama said in the interview recorded Saturday at the White House.
Obama has assigned Vice President Joe Biden to assemble a task force that will make specific recommendations next month to address gun violence.
He said he will put his "full weight" behind the Biden task force's recommendations. But ultimately, he said, it will be up to the American people. "We're not going to get this done unless the American people decide this is important," he said.
He urged the public to support those in Congress who are willing to vote for new gun legislation.
"The question then becomes whether we are actually shook up enough by what happened here that it does not just become another one of these routine episodes where it gets a lot of attention for a couple of weeks and then it drifts away.
"It certainly won't feel that way to me," the president continued. "That was the worst day of my presidency. And it's not something I want to see repeated."
In the Newtown shootings, six staff members were also killed at the elementary school. Gunman Adam Lanza committed suicide as police closed in. Earlier, he killed his mother at the home they shared.
Obama rejected the National Rifle Association's proposal that an armed guard be assigned to every school. "I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that this is going to solve the problem."
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