Baku, January 8 AZERTAC
President Barack Obama tore into the nation’s largest gun lobby on Thursday as he sought support for his actions on gun control, accusing the National Rifle Association of peddling an “imaginary fiction” that has distorted the national debate about gun violence.
The president’s cool demeanor frayed only once – when challenged over his use of the term “conspiracy” when discussing whether his government wanted to take people’s guns from them.
He blamed that notion on the NRA and like-minded groups that convince its members that “somebody’s going to come grab your guns”.
Obama told the townhall meeting at George Mason University, Virginia – in an echo of a column for the New York Times published on Thursday – that he would not campaign for any candidate, even within his own party, who did not back gun reforms.
Kimberly Corban, a survivor of a sexual assault who said she carried a gun to protect herself and her two young children, told Obama that she felt his changes infringed on her rights. “I have been unspeakably victimised once already, and I refuse to let that happen again to myself or my kids,” Corban said.
“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 … imaginary fiction in which ‘Obama’s trying to take away your guns’.”
Chris Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist, said he was “not really interested” in talking to Obama.
The NRA pushed back on Obama in real time on Twitter, noting in one tweet that “none of the president’s orders would have stopped any of the recent mass shootings”.
