After the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, Donald Trump reacted first by tweet and then in a press conference, and both times he failed to condemn the real route of the majority of mass shootings: guns and white supremacist terrorism.

During his administration, Barack Obama often brought thoughtfulness and raw emotion in addressing mass shootings, particularly Sandy Hook, during which he began to tear up while describing the children who were lost at a press conference.

Even though he no longer is commander-in-chief, the 44th President took to social media to pay his condolences to the friends and family of those killed and injured in Dayton and El Paso. Also, he gracefully offered solutions on how to decrease the bloodshed.

“No other nation on Earth comes close to experiencing the frequency of mass shootings that we see in the United States,” Obama wrote in a message he shared on Twitter. “The evidence shows that they can stop some killings. They can save some families from heartbreak. We are not helpless here. And until all of us stand up and insist on holding public officials accountable for changing our gun laws, these tragedies will keep happening.”

He continued, “While the motivations behind these shootings may not yet be fully known, there are indications that the El Paso shooting follows a dangerous trend: troubled individuals who embrace racist ideologies and see themselves obligated to act violently to preserve white supremacy. Like the followers of ISIS and other foreign terrorist organizations, these individuals may act alone, but they’ve been radicalized by white nationalist websites that proliferate on the internet. That means that both law enforcement agencies and internet platforms need to come up with better strategies to reduce the influence of these hate groups.”

In Monday’s (August 5) statement, Obama, who doesn’t usually criticize his predecessor publicly, loosely alluded to Donald Trump’s history of racist rhetoric.

“We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments; leaders who demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people.”
He concluded, “It has no place in our politics and our public life. And it’s time for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party, to say as much – clearly and unequivocally.”

Read Barack Obama’s full statement of the recent mass shootings below.