President Obama arrived in Newtown on Sunday evening to meet family members of the victims and to speak at an interfaith vigil at Newtown High School. A large number of young children with their parents as well as many other people have started filing into the high school auditorium for the vigil.
For the fourth time in his four years as president, Obama will lead awful rituals of mass death and national grief. Obama made similar visits to Fort Hood, Tex., in 2009, Tucson in 2011 and Aurora, Colo., this July — each time, in the aftermath of a gunman’s spree. Obama has tended to focus on emotion and healing in these moments, touching only lightly on the subject of guns and gun control.
Now, however, Obama will face a new and higher level of pressure from advocates of gun control, saying that this time, he must do more than simply grieve....