Barack Obama at gun town hall: My ‘position is consistently mischaracterized’

Obama’s tears, town hall, and gun control talking points have assaulted the news and social media this week, but is he reaching voters? “The National Rifle Association sees no reason to participate in a public relations spectacle orchestrated by the White House”, said Andrew Arulanandam, the managing director of public affairs for the NRA.

“The way it is described, is that we are trying to take away everybody’s guns”. On Wednesday, Wallace said it was too early to tell if Obama’s latest speech would affect gun sales at his store, but he wouldn’t be surprised because firearm sales have increased between 40 and 50 percent since the attacks in Paris on November 13 that killed 130 people.

Obama rejected as “imaginary fiction” the claim that he wanted to take away the guns of law-abiding Americans, reiterating that he respects the Second Amendment of the Constitution and the right to bear arms.

Hudson also said he doesn’t trust the president when he says he’s not going to take guns away from gun owners. “I would hope that you would agree with that”, he continued. 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).

A CNN spokesperson said that it was the network, not the White House, that proposed the idea of a town hall on guns and noted that the audience would be evenly divided between organizations that support the Second Amendment, including NRA members, as well as groups that back gun regulation. “And, since this is the main reason they exist, you’d think they’d be prepared to have a debate with … a president”, he said.

In a New York Times op-ed piece that was published Thursday evening just before he appeared on he CNN Town Hall meeting, the President said he would not support any candidate for political office, even a fellow Democrat, if he or she does not support what he called “common-sense gun reform”. Obama called out the gun group in front of a select, invitation-only audience that attended the one-hour affair, complete with commercials and sponsors. 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.

Clinton, Sanders bat for it The two leading Democratic candidates for President, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, expressed support for the executive actions, making it unlikely that Obama’s ultimatum would affect a member of Obama’s party. “We’re closing all of these institutions now and people are going out on the streets… there are a lot of sick people out there”, the corporate titan said.

Part of a concerted White House push to promote the effort, the forum attracted a number of high-profile figured in the gun debate, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in 2011. “It was one of the worst days of my presidency”.

For example, as he attempted to justify his new executive actions on guns, Obama pointed to other products or services the government regulates, like aspirin or cars as examples of common sense regulations to make things safer.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson tweeted: “We need a president who will stop threatening legal gun owners, & start tackling the root causes of violent crime & terrorism in this county”.

“Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad”, the president said, struggling to collect himself. “But, you know, ultimately, that’s clearly what he’s up to”.