“And since this is the main reason they exist, you’d think they’d be prepared to have a debate with…a president”.
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Mr Obama’s attack on the NRA came two days after unveiling a package aimed at keeping guns from people who should not have them.
“I have been unspeakably victimized once already and I refuse to let that happen again to myself or my kids”, she said.
He said the NRA has a “stranglehold” on Congress and that the gun group was partially to blame for spikes in gun sales after mass shootings, which he says has “convinced many of its members that somebody is going to come grab your guns”.
“Look, any time that there’s a crisis, a tragedy whether it’s San Bernardino or these tragic mass killings by deranged people the first impulse of the president of the United States and Hillary Clinton is to take more rights away from law-abiding citizens”, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said in a video. In a statement to CNN, an NRA spokesman said that the advocacy group “sees no reason to participate in a public relations spectacle orchestrated by the White House”.
Obama also noted during the broadcast that, while both gun safety advocates and gun enthusiasts were invited to participate in the event, the National Rifle Association declined. Here, the partisan divide is wide: 78% of Democrats say they favor Obama’s use of executive actions, while 79% of Republicans oppose it. Independents generally oppose the move, 61% opposed to 37% in favor.
Throughout the evening, Obama sought to tamp down the notion that his administration was coming to take away Americans’ guns, calling them “conspiracy theories” and lamenting that his positions are “consistently mischaracterized”.
After his re-election in 2012, the President pushed for a bipartisan gun control bill, but that collapsed in the Senate.
The White House called that message “irresponsible”.
Among those asking questions was Taya Kyle, widow of Chris Kyle, whose story was depicted in last year’s “American Sniper”.
Before Thursday’s town hall, the New York Times published an op-ed by the president, who vowed to spend his final year in office pushing for “common-sense gun reform” and said the “epidemic of gun violence in our country is a crisis”.
“But all of us can agree that it makes sense to do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of people who would try to do others harm or to do themselves harm, because every year we’re losing 30,000 people to gun violence”, he added.
“I’m sorry, Cooper”, Obama replied, sounding exasperated as he continued: “Yes”.
In one exchange, Cooper said some Americans simply don’t trust Obama’s motives, asking the president if it was “fair to call it a conspiracy”.
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When Colorado rape victim Kimberly Corban said that owning a firearm makes her feel safer, Obama told her there is, “nothing we’re proposing that prevents you or makes it harder for you to purchase a firearm if you need one”.
