Barack Obama has channelled a disgust with his own country’s unique propensity for firearm violence in a direct call to the American people to finally push for gun control laws, following a mass shooting at a school in Oregon.

In what was one of the most powerful speeches of his administration – and the 15th following a shooting – the US president made an openly political call for voters to do what politicians and the American gun lobby have not: pressure legislation to keep guns out of the hands of people like the 26-year-old man who killed at least nine people on Thursday inside Umpqua community college.

“We are not the only country on earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people,” he said at the White House, as details of the shooting in the town of Roseburg remained unclear. “We are the only advanced country on earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.”

Obama praised the UK and Australia – “countries like ours” – in having come up with “ways to prevent” mass shootings. But Obama reiterated his concern that the country he leads was the only advanced nation that did not have “sufficient, commonsense” gun laws. The shooter in Roseburg reportedly had four guns in his possession. Details