With 18 months left in office and a hostile Congress fully controlled by Republicans who won't budge on sabotaging his agenda, US President Barack Obama has made it clear with aggressive push in many domains that there is no way he would become a "lame duck" who frets over his waning clout.

Yet, when it comes to dealing with rampant mass shootings in the country, Obama almost appeared resigned in his latest speech on gun violence that all he could say was that "at some point," the US would have to reckon with the ugly fact.

The mass shooting on Wednesday night where nine black churchgoers were killed by a 21- year-old white man in Charleston, South Carolina, served as a grim reminder.

For a long time, mass shootings have been a banal fact in the US. According to shootingtracker.com, a website dedicated to tracking gun violence in the country, in the first five months of 2015, the number of mass shootings has already reached 119.

During his presidency, Obama is believed to have already delivered 14 nationwide speeches in the wake of mass shootings. However, nothing happened so far to make the ownership of deadly weapons stricter.

On the contrary, 20 states have loosened gun laws since the Sandy Hook mass shooting in 2012, according to a report by the Portland Press Herald.

Hamstrung by bipartisan gridlock, expansive interpretations of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and powerful gun lobby, the US government lacks the legal or political resources to hold to its stance.

Shortly after the Charleston massacre, Republican presidential hopefuls started an inter-party race to offer their somber condolences to the victims. But none of them blamed the country's gun policy.

It might seem common sense to ban private ownership of semi-automatic weapons and to expand background checks on gun purchases. But not in Washington.

The article is a commentary from the Xinhua News Agency. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn