Seeking support for gun actions, Obama tears into the NRA

President Barack Obama, left, speaks during a CNN televised town hall meeting hosted by Anderson Cooper, right, at George Mason University.

Offering a long defence of the tightening of existing gun laws, Obama dismissed the conspiracy theorists that believe proposals to improve gun control is a prelude tyranny. “I’m happy to talk to them, but, the conversation has to be based on facts and truth, and what we’re actually proposing, not some – you know, imaginary fiction in which Obama’s trying to take away your guns”.

Visibly frustrated, Obama questioned why there is so much division between parties and groups when it comes to guns and everyone postulates about his hidden agenda after mass shootings, but when he tries to reform the pharmaceutical industry to keep risky pills away from the public, no one ever accuses him of “trying to take everyone’s drugs”. He said the NRA refuses to acknowledge the government’s responsibility to make legal products safer, citing seatbelts and child-proof medicine bottles as examples.

The NRA, which received the lion’s share of Obama’s ire, declined an invitation to take part in the town hall.

Several NRA members were in the audience of the town hall meeting and the group’s officials responded to the President’s answers via Twitter.

Obama sought tougher laws after the Newtown massacre, but said he was foiled by the NRA.

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.

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

A CNN poll showed that 67 percent of Americans support the new measure, which would strengthen background checks ahead of gun sales and clamp down on the illegal purchasing of weapons through an intermediary. The National Rifle Association was invited to participate, but according to NRA-ILA Executive Vice President Chris Cox, the organization was told they would only be allowed to ask a single, pre-screened question.

The American Firearms Retailers Association, another lobby group that represents gun dealers, did participate.

It’s doubtful she’ll want Obama by her side then, and she told Politico’s Burgess Everett and Lauren French she has “serious concerns” about Obama’s unilateral actions on guns.

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 plan has drawn intense criticism from gun-rights groups, which have accused the president of trampling on the Second Amendment and railroading Congress by taking action on his own. Right? I come from the state of Illinois, which, we’ve been talking about Chicago but Downstate Illinois is closer to Kentucky than it is to Chicago, and everybody hunts down there, and a lot of folks own guns, and so this is not like alien territory to me.

He said his administration will hire more people to process background checks to make the system more efficient and add 200 more agents and investigators to ensure the “smart and effective” enforcement of gun safety laws. He said people who want common sense gun reforms need to get as passionate about the issue as those involved in the gun lobby and vote for people who will work for reforms. And the Democrats who do, those in the bluest of blue states and districts, are as unlikely to depart from liberal orthodoxy on guns as, well, the New York Times and the overwhelming majority of its readers.