Obama defends gun-control measures in town hall event

The NRA official said that his participation in the town hall would have only been one agreed-upon question. 20% of voters responded “not sure” to the question.

Earlier this week, Gov. Mike Pence discussed the state’s gun laws and said he supports the right the bear arms.

In an interview with Cooper at the beginning of the evening, Obama attributed some of the tensions over the issue to divergent perceptions on gun ownership between rural and inner city communities.

According to a CNN poll 67 percent of Americans support the measures – which include an increase in background checks and registration of gun dealers – while 32 percent oppose them. Seemingly incredulous, Obama challenged Anderson Cooper after the anchor started to speculate whether it was fair to call the notion a conspiracy. There’s a reason why the NRA is not here.

In a primetime, televised forum, the president dismissed what he called a “conspiracy” alleging that the government – and Mr Obama in particular – wants to seize all firearms as a precursor to imposing martial law.

“I think he probably means well”, the real estate mogul said Wednesday on Fox News’ Fox and Friends. “If you listen to the rhetoric, it is so over the top, and so overheated”.

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”.

Support for the executive actions, created to expand background checks to cover more gun purchases made online or at gun shows and to make it easier for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to complete background checks efficiently, comes across party lines, with majorities of Democrats (85 percent), independents (65 percent) and Republicans (51 percent) in favor of them. “Everybody agrees that it makes sense to keep guns out of the hands of people who want to do others harm or do themselves harm”.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said ahead of the event that the group saw “no reason to participate in a public relations spectacle orchestrated by the White House”.

“What are we going to talk about, basketball?” he said.

“I don’t understand why we can’t [get a title] for guns just like cars”, he said.

“Even as I continue to take every action possible as president, I will also take every action I can as a citizen”.

While the executive policies will help, “we still need congressional action, and I very much hope that one day my colleagues will find the courage to do the right thing and stand up to the gun lobby”, said Feinstein, who has long pushed unsuccessfully to pass gun control measures.