The Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting “reminds us all of the ways that we are united as one American family,” President Barack Obama said today in a speech mourning the victims of the attack.
Obama had been scheduled to give a campaign speech in Fort Myers, Florida, but instead addressed the crowd with a short speech on the tragedy, telling them that “there are going to be other days for politics.”
“We may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this. Such violence, such evil is senseless — it’s beyond reason. But while we will never know fully what causes somebody to take the life of another, we do know what makes life worth living,” the president said. “The people we lost in Aurora loved and they were loved. They were mothers and fathers, they were husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors. They had hopes for the future and they had dreams that were not yet fulfilled. And if there is anything to take away from this tragedy, it’s the reminder that life is very fragile.”
“What matters at the end of the day is not the small things,” Obama continued. “It’s not the trivial things which so often consume us and our daily lives. Ultimately it’s how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another…. At the end of the day, what we’ll remember will be those we loved and what we did for others.”
Watch President Obama’s full speech below, courtesy of NBC News:
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Both Obama and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns are pulling their political ads from Colorado in the wake of the tragedy.
