U.S. President Barack Obama participated in a town hall meeting hosted by the U.S. TV network CNN Thursday night, defending his executive orders aimed at curbing gun violence in the country.
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President Obama’s executive action would require all gun dealers to be licensed, it would mean more investigators and it would increase mental health treatment and reporting.
“Our position is consistently mischaracterized”, Obama said.
Obama renewed his push for gun regulations following a spree of mass shootings past year, including a one orchestrated by a radicalized Muslim couple in San Bernardino, California, in December in which 14 people died.
But several gun owners peppered Obama with arguments against his gun rule proposals.
In the editorial, Obama criticized Congress for repeatedly blocking firearm-safety legislation and giving gun manufacturers “virtual immunity” from lawsuits.
“Keep in mind I’ve been president for over seven years and gun sales don’t seem to have suffered during that time”.
“Now, technically, you could say those folks bought them illegally”, je continued, “but it was facilitated by the fact that what used to be a small exception that said collectors and hobbyists don’t need to go through a background check has become this massive industry”. He said: “She was absolutely right”.
Sen. Ted Cruz has emailed supporters an image of Obama in combat uniform, complete with helmet, claiming “Obama wants your guns”, while canvasing for campaign support.
Republican presidential front- runner Donald Trump has said he disagrees with Barack Obama on gun control measures but conceded that the US President’s tears while talking of steps to tackle gun violence were real.
President Obama cried while listing all the schools where students have been shot, including Newtown, Connecticut, where twenty first-graders, aged 6 and 7, were killed in a mass shooting in 2012.
The NRA sat out the town hall, aired live on CNN from a university just miles (km) from the group’s Virginia headquarters, calling it a “public relations spectacle”.
Here, the partisan divide is wide: 78 percent of Democrats say they favor Obama’s use of executive actions, while 79 percent of Republicans oppose it. Independents generally oppose the move, 61 percent opposed to 37 percent in favor. Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was injured in an assassination attempt in 2011, and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who is now a gun control advocate, will attend.
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Mr. Obama also addressed the issue of gun violence in a New York Times op-ed Thursday.
