WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will not push for stricter gun laws this election year, the White House said Thursday, one day after his impassioned remarks about the need to keep assault weapons off the streets suggested he may plunge into that political fight and challenge Congress to act.

Instead, Obama’s stand on the government’s role ended up right where it was after the mass shooting in Colorado last week: Enforce existing law better. That is same view held by his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, as both reach for broader and more politically appealing ways to keep guns away from killers.

Obama still wants Congress to reinstitute a federal ban on military-style assault weapons that lapsed years ago, his spokesman Jay Carney said. But the president is not and has not been pushing for that ban, a nod to the politics of gun control.