President Barack Obama has urged Congress to pass stalled U.S. gun control legislation, saying the vast majority of Americans support new restrictions, BBC News reported.
In Colorado, Obama accused the gun lobby of instilling fears of government gun confiscation to rally opposition.
Gun control opponents maintain the U.S. Constitution forbids the restrictions Obama and gun control groups favor. Meanwhile, the U.S. state of Connecticut on Wednesday, April 3 was set to enact its own sweeping new gun restrictions.
Among the Connecticut measures up for a vote are a ban on new high-capacity magazines and mandatory background checks on all gun purchasers, restrictions President Obama and gun control advocates say are necessary to curb America's epidemic of gun violence.
In Denver, Colorado on Wednesday, the president said he went there to speak "because Colorado is proving a model of what's possible".
Last month the western state, which has a deeply embedded culture of gun ownership, imposed limits on the size of ammunition magazines and expanded background checks for gun buyers.
The long-dormant U.S. gun control debate revived in December after a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at a primary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Obama spoke at the Denver Police Academy in an effort to build support for new national gun control measures similar to those enacted in Colorado and elsewhere since December.
The national effort has stalled in the face of stiff opposition from the powerful gun rights lobby.
Obama said Colorado was "a state of proud hunters and sportsmen" that "treasures" its right to own guns, but insisted there was "no conflict" between Colorado's tradition of gun ownership and the need for stricter regulation.
"This is a state that has suffered the tragedy of two of the worst mass shootings in our history – 14 years ago this month in Columbine, and just last year in Aurora," Obama said, referring to a 1999 school shooting and a movie theatre massacre that killed 12 and wounded dozens in July 2012.
Obama also said some gun rights advocates deliberately "ginned up fears" that the government planned to confiscate guns in order to bolster opposition to new restrictions. But he said those fears did not reflect reality and he pleaded with gun owners to set their peers straight.
In Washington, the U.S. Congress is set to debate new gun control legislation this month.
