Obama leaves Roseburg after meeting with families

Obama spent about an hour with the families. Not everyone in Roseburg welcomed the President.

Obama was already scheduled to travel to the West Coast, mostly for weekend fundraising events in Seattle and across California, when the 26-year-old gunman opened fire last week at the community college.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, he said he had “strong feelings” about the issue of gun control and said the country needed to come together to prevent such shootings from happening in the future.

The White House has not said how many people the president met with at Roseburg High School.

Holding signs saying the president was not welcome, more than 200 gun-rights activists protested Barack Obama’s visit on Friday to Oregon to meet with the families of victims of last week’s campus killings.

“He’s using us to politicize this shooting”.

“I think he should stay away”, said Gary Shamblin, 66, of Winston, a couple of hours before Obama’s arrival, as a large “No Obama” sign was positioned on his 1935 global Harvester pickup.

Billie McMillian, a business owner from Eagle Point who attended the protest with her husband, said they came to support the families of the victims and because they didn’t agree with the president.

Many who favor gun ownership have accused the president of using mass shootings as a political tool to complete a personal agenda. And it didn’t stop people in Douglas County in Oregon from expressing the view that the answer is more people carrying guns, not fewer.

“Those individuals have nothing to fear”, Earnest said, referring to the protesters. “The fact is the president has made clear that the goal of his visit is to spend time with the families of those who are so deeply affected by this bad tragedy”.

Joined by Gov. Kate Brown and Roseburg Mayor Larry Rich, Obama gave brief remarks to a small contingent of press, allowed to wait in the school’s library during his visit, in a school courtyard. The White House adjusted his schedule to add the Roseburg stop. Democrats are pitching the formation of a special committee to investigate gun violence, similar to panels the GOP-led House established to investigate Planned Parenthood and the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans.

Stacy Boylan told Fox News earlier in the week that he does not think the president’s proposals for tougher gun control laws would have stopped his daughter Ana from being shot.

Earnest has cited requiring background checks for all firearms purchases at gun shows as an “obvious thing that we believe that Congress should do”.