Emotions drive modern political discourse because we are living in a nation of mathematical illiterates. Gun violence is mostly blacks killing other blacks, and even then yearly gun-related deaths only kill about a hundredth of one percent of the American population.
You know what else is responsible for killing at least 0.01% of Americans? Cars, prescription drugs, prostate cancer, and breast cancer. All of these threats to our survival cause a minimum of 30,000 deaths a year. (Some estimates put yearly prescription-drug and auto-related deaths at over 100,000.)
The media cherry-picks which topics it decides are fashionable and so does the president, numbers be damned.
This is what happens when you throw math out the window and let photos of dead children dictate legislation.
