US President Barack Obama has come under fire from critics of his latest push for harsher gun laws in a country witnessing an upsurge in gun violence.
Advertisement
“I’m only going to be here for another year”, he added. “I don’t know – when would I have started on this enterprise, right?”
He called on Congress to set up a system that is “efficient” and doesn’t inconvenience lawful gun owners to create a background check system that would stem at least some illegal gun activity.
“Since this is a main reason they exist, you’d think that they’d be prepared to have a debate with the president”, Obama said.
“(Obama) is overstepping his bounds”, said Huntley resident Cynthia Bidgood.
“The next installment of the Obama Gun Ban Media Circus will be on Thursday, January 7, at 8:00 p.m., when Obama will join Anderson Cooper on CNN for a live town hall on gun control called ‘Guns in America, ‘” the petition said.
Obama sought tougher laws after the Newtown massacre, but said he was foiled by the NRA.
Obama is trying to make the case for tightening gun control rules, while fighting claims by opponents of such regulations that he’s trying to take away people’s Second Amendment rights.
“The National Rifle Association sees no reason to participate in a public relations spectacle orchestrated by the White House”, NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam told the network.
Pushing back in real time on Twitter, the NRA said that “none of the president’s orders would have stopped any of the recent mass shootings”, such as those in San Bernardino and Sandy Hook, to which Obama tearfully referred while unveiling the new laws on Tuesday. Trump opposes 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. The president, in the midst of family members of victims of gun shots in the white house expressed the need to use his executive power to enforce control in gun sales to ensure that only the right and legally mandated people sell guns in the US. Women, who are about half as likely as men to be gun owners, are about evenly split on the question (47% say they will be effective, 50% not), while men mostly say they won’t work (64% not effective vs. 34% who say they will be effective). “There’s nothing that we’ve proposed that would make it harder for you to purchase a firearm”, Obama responded.
The president also said such a fear was impractical.
“I’ve been very good for gun manufacturers”, he said.
Advertisement
“Issues like licensing, registration, that’s an area where there’s just not enough national consensus at this stage to even consider it. And part of it is, is people’s concern that that becomes a prelude to taking people’s guns away”, Obama replied.
