“I want to take a look one more time. I’m not going to see this again.” —President Obama pausing while leaving his second inaugural ceremony to look out onto the crowd on the National Mall 

“I want to take a look one more time. I’m not going to see this again.” —President Obama pausing while leaving his second inaugural ceremony to look out onto the crowd on the National Mall 

Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.

President Obama, second inaugural address

We have to examine ourselves in our hearts and ask ourselves what is important. This will not happen unless the American people demand it. If parents and teachers, police officers and pastors, if hunters and sportsmen, if responsible gun owners, if Americans of every background stand up and say enough—we’ve suffered too much pain and care too much about our children to allow this to continue—then change will come. That’s what it’s going to take.

President Obama, laying out a set of proposals today to reduce gun violence