A day after President Obama called for broad new gun laws, the White House published on its YouTube channel videos of four children reading their own letters about guns.
The videos are part of what the White House promises will be an all-out effort by Mr. Obama’s administration to pass his gun proposals, drawing on the emotional reactions to the school shootings in Newtown, Conn.
But the effort â€" which shows each of the four children sitting in a chair in front of a blue vlvet curtain â€" is certain to generate criticism that the president is exploiting little children for his own political purposes.
On Wednesday, it was Mr. Obama who expressed outrage when the National Rifle Association referred to his daughters in a video that called the president a hypocrite for not supporting more armed security at schools. The White House called the video “repugnant and cowardly,†saying it crossed a line by dragging children into a political debate.
Conservatives said on Wednesday that Mr. Obama had crossed a similar line by featuring four youn! g children on the stage while he was announcing his gun plans.
The new videos take that effort one step further.
In “A letter from Hinna,†Hinna Zeejah, 8, reads aloud what she wrote to Mr. Obama in the wake of the shootings.
“Mr. President, can we do something which will stop all of these terrible problems,†she says. “Can we stop using guns I think if they are no guns on the street, no one could get hurt. Bullets don’t have eyes. It can hurt anyone.â€
In another video, titled, “A letter from Julia,†Julia Stokes, 11, tells Mr. Obama that guns should be “very hard for people to buy.â€
“The only thing they do is harm or kill,†Julia said. “I know that laws have to be passed by Congress, but I beg you to try ver hard to make guns not allowed.â€
Follow Michael D. Shear on Twitter at @shearm.
