Obama Says He Was Surprised By Crying At Gun Control Speech

“Since this is a main reason they exist, you’d think that they’d be prepared to have a debate with the president”, President Obama said.

“The NRA has convinced many of its members that somebody’s going to come grab your guns”, Obama said, describing it as a ploy to drive up sales of guns.

Toby Hoover is founder of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence.

According to a CNN poll 67 percent of people support the measures – which include an increase in background checks and registration of gun dealers – and 32 percent oppose.

Obama’s actions on guns have drawn major attention in the presidential campaign, with the Democratic candidates backing Obama and the Republicans unanimously voicing opposition.

At a campaign event in New Hampshire on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said Obama was on a mission to undermine the rights guaranteed to Americans by the Constitution.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman pointed to New York’s stringent gun laws enacted after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and said the state remains a “dumping ground for the ‘iron pipeline, ‘ which funnels guns from states with weaker gun laws to crime scenes in Binghamton, Buffalo, and the Bronx”. If smartphones can’t be unlocked without the owner’s fingerprint, he asked, why not guns?

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”. They don’t go as far as legislation he failed to get through Congress after Newtown to ban assault-style weapons and limit the size of ammunition clips, as well as expand background checks. Unfortunately, there’s little hope of that, given the influence and money of the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers. “I applaud the President’s decision to take a stand and act, even as Congress continues to delay”.

As Obama made clear, gun violence is a public health concern, as well as law enforcement issue, and should be treated as such. But Congress won’t even lift a ridiculous provision that for 17 years has halted virtually all federal research into gun violence. In conjunction with executive action that will do nothing to stop criminals, he’s using his press monkeys to give him a forum to pontificate on gun control, disguised as a town hall event.

To counter the gun lobby, Americans who support common sense gun control have to be just as passionate and organized, as the president said. Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was injured in an assassination attempt in 2011, and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who is now a gun control advocate, will attend.

Obama defended his support for the constitutional right to gun ownership while arguing it was consistent with his efforts to curb mass shootings.

We’re still waiting for the president’s foes to explain why the rights of gun owners are somehow more important.