“If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you”, said the ever wise Calvin Coolidge, who was both the best American President and most conservative.
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“We talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Newtown, after Aurora, after Charleston”, he continued.
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump held a rally in Burlington, Vermont, at the same time as the forum and weighed in on the issue of firearms, attacking the idea of gun-free zones, though it wasn’t a topic raised by Obama or other participants Thursday night. They – I think their office is just a couple miles away. “Because once Congress gets on board with common-sense gun safety measures, we can reduce gun violence a whole lot more”.
“I announced new steps I am taking within my legal authority to protect the American people and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and risky people”.
He also addressed the gun industry and pointed out the drawbacks of the strong lobby that they have created in the Congress, which saves them from accountability and also allows lives to be exploited everyday. “He doesn’t support the individual right to own a firearm”. Instead, the ATF will merely provide guidance to unlicensed gun sellers about what it means to be in compliance with the law. We don’t take cars away by putting titles on them.
The rhetoric around his gun control agenda, Obama said, ‘is so over the top, and so overheated’. “And since this is the main reason they exist, you’d think they would be prepared to have a debate with the president”.
Several NRA members were in the audience for the town hall, which was organized and hosted by CNN.
The White House has portrayed the NRA as possessing a disproportionate influence over Congress that has prevented new gun laws being introduced, despite broad USA support for measures including universal background checks.
“Even as I continue to take every action possible as president, I will also take every action I can as a citizen”, he said in an opinion column published by the New York Times.
Mark Kelly, the astronaut and husband of former Arizona congresswoman and shooting victim Gabrielle Giffords, told Obama the two gun control advocates have encountered fears that expanding background checks “will lead to a (gun) registry, which will lead to confiscation, which will lead to a tyrannical government”. Their thoughts and prayers were nothing compared to President Obama’s tears and executive order that, again, would not have stopped a single mass shooting.
But Obama’s pleadings appear to have done little to change minds about guns.
The American Firearms Retailers Association, another lobby group that represents gun dealers, did participate Thursday.
According to the Chicago Tribune: “When it comes to background checks – the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s executive actions to keep people who should not have guns from legally purchasing them – IL already is far ahead of the rest of the country”. Just after his 2012 re-election, Obama pushed hard for a bipartisan gun-control bill that collapsed in the Senate, ending any realistic prospects for a legislative solution in the near term.
While Obama’s speech and actions this week to implement more reductions of our gun rights is very troubling, I am equally distressed about presidents’ subversion of the Constitution when acting unilaterally through executive orders.
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Lederman reported from Washington.
