The image of a president, admittedly powerless against senseless violence such as that experienced last week in Roseburg, Ore., was heart rending.
Nine people were dead and more injured on a community college campus. A lone gunman had in a matter of minutes snuffed out those lives and forever altered others.
"Our thoughts and prayers are not enough," said President Obama, as he gave voice to emotions felt by millions of Americans in the wake of another campus massacre.
It was the 15th time President Obama had to console Americans after a mass shooting on his watch.
This incident followed this year's mass murders in a Charleston church and earlier mass shootings in movie theaters, at military sites and in so many, many schools -- including the horrific killings at Sandy Hook Elementary.
The 2012 massacre of 20 children and six adults in that Newtown, Conn., schoolhouse was expected to change the culture, somehow to break the cycle that had prevented passage of gun-safety laws.
It didn't. Not only have these high-profile mass shootings continued, so too have other incidents resulting in day-in and day-out death and injury from gun violence.
So there stood President Obama last week in the White House briefing room. Yet again, the issue was gun violence and the president was saddened but also angry and frustrated by the recurring national nightmare.
"So tonight, as those of us who are lucky enough to hug our kids a little closer are thinking about the families who aren't so fortunate," Obama said, "I'd ask the American people to think about how they can get our government to change these laws, and to save these lives and let these people grow up."
So common are such gun massacres that the nation has become "numb" to them, he suggested.
So difficult is any effort to address the issue that he imagined those who oppose "any kind of common-sense gun legislation" were already cranking out press releases.
"'We need more guns,' they'll argue. 'Fewer gun-safety laws.' Does anybody really believe that?" President Obama asked, his frustration apparent.
The president even included an appeal to gun owners "who are using those guns properly, safely, to hunt for sport, for protecting their families" to think about whether the National Rifle Association is really speaking for them.
The organization has, of course, been the primary opponent to stricter gun laws, including a failed Obama administration push for universal background checks and other post-Sandy Hook proposals.
Of course, the mental health of these many shooters and the challenge to get them help before they harm others or themselves is a huge part of the challenge; but that doesn't erase the need to re-examine the gun culture -- and gun control -- in this country.
Obama offered a couple of significant points for the argument that will certainly follow in the coming weeks and months.
He suggested a comparison of the number of Americans killed by terrorist attacks with those killed by domestic gun violence.
He knew the numbers, of course, which news organizations have since been reporting. Gun violence accounts for many more deaths this year alone compared to deaths attributed to terrorism, including all of those lost in the 9-11 attacks in 2001. Yet consider how differently the government responds to each.
The president also made the point that the government's answer to mine disasters, weather disasters and highway deaths has been greater safety measures. But, he said, the Congress has forbidden the federal government from even collecting certain statistics when it comes to guns.
That last issue has an Arkansas connection. Almost 20 years ago, Pine Bluff native and former U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey authored the amendment that has kept government researchers from tracking gun violence statistics.
It was 1996 during Bill Clinton's administration, when Republican Dickey was looking to stop research he and other foes thought could advocate for gun control.
A regretful Dickey now tells the Huffington Post he wishes the country had begun the proper research and kept it going. His amendment, he says, has been over-interpreted.
It stated that none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "may be used to advocate or promote gun control."
Dickey is long gone from the Congress; but the restriction has continued and even been extended to apply to the National Institutes of Health.
"No" meant "no" to the regulators.
Dickey himself wonders now if gun-safety research might have led to some solution to gun violence without restrictions on the Second Amendment.
Although he has since advocated for the Congress to change the law, the "Dickey amendment" remains among the long-standing barriers to gun control.
So here we are.
What Obama hasn't been able to do in his presidency -- what others could not do either -- is apparently in the hands of voters as they choose the next president and the members of Congress.
Thoughts and prayers for those in Roseburg are not enough, just as they weren't for those in Columbine and Jonesboro and Tucson and Newtown and Charleston and all the other too-familiar places.
Commentary on 10/07/2015