Obama to talk up gun measures at town hall

The president headlined a national televised town hall meeting on guns Thursday night outside Washington. “They’re just down the street”, Obama said, referring to the group’s headquarters located less than 5 miles (8 kilometers) from George Mason University where the debate took place. View more tweets below.

President Barack Obama says gun ownership is a very divisive issue because Americans in urban and rural areas live in different realities.

The reason for such recklessness with the gun industry, Obama argued, is “the gun lobby’s decades of efforts”, which has held Congress captive and prevented even basic research into gun violence by the government.

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”.

“The more problematic areas are if the president tries to extend existing laws beyond the breaking point, to get them to apply to average citizens who are law-abiding, who are not engaged in illegal arms transactions”, he said.

“I have been unspeakably victimized once already, and I refuse to let that happen again to myself or my kids”, Corban said. In a statement to CNN, an NRA spokesman said that the advocacy group “sees no reason to participate in a public relations spectacle orchestrated by the White House”.

‘While President Obama won’t be on the ballot this November, thousands of other candidates will, and they need to know that if they support the President’s gun ban agenda, they will LOSE YOUR VOTE!’

Donald Trump, addressing a rally in Vermont, said he would eliminate gun-free zones in schools on his first day if elected to the White House.

“I think it’s useful to keep in mind I’ve been president for over seven years, and gun sales don’t seem to have suffered during that time”, said Obama. “There’s no doubt the White House will also be crafting pro-gun control questions that are asked from carefully selected audience members”, wrote commentator Katie Pavlich.

“I’m sorry, Cooper. Yes it is fair to call it a conspiracy”, Obama shot back incredulously. Are you suggesting… we are creating a plot to take everyone’s guns away so we can impose martial law? “Each time this comes up, we are fed the excuse that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, or the one before that, so why bother trying”, Obama said.