CNN's 'Guns in America': Obama Challenged on All Sides
CNN’s Guns in America: A Town Hall Meeting tried to gather together citizens with different views on gun control to discuss this subject with host Anderson Cooper and special guest President Obama. The result was a tedious session interrupted by a flashing spark of irritation — directed at Cooper by Obama — and some sniping by the NRA, which maintained an ambush position over on Fox News.
Obama and Cooper sat on stools surrounded by the audience. Obama began by going to some lengths to express sympathy with, and an understanding of, gun ownership. He told an anecdote about he and wife Michelle visiting rural Iowa, and the First Lady remarking that, if she lived out in a sparsely populated area where police response-time might not be ideal, she’d want to own a shotgun.
What was promoted as a discussion about guns, however, turned into roughly an hour and 15 minutes of audience members asking the President questions, and him responding with variations on what we have heard before in his calls for “sensible gun control measures.”
The faces of the questioners were frequently familiar. They included retired astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords (who stood by his side), and Taya Kyle, widow of Chris Kyle, the soldier depicted in American Sniper, who was murdered in a gun crime.
Obama rejected the notion that his administration was conducting a “conspiracy” to take guns away from citizens. Cooper asked whether it was “fair” to dismiss what the newsman said “many people feel” as a conspiracy theory. In one of the rare moments when an elected official actually responds with genuine irritation at the weak-kneed, mainstream-media devout belief that Everyone’s Opinion Is Super-Valid, Obama turned on Cooper sharply. “Yes, it is fair to call that a conspiracy,” Obama told Cooper. “What are you saying? Are you suggesting that the notion that we are creating a plot to take everyone’s guns away so that we can impose martial law, is a conspiracy? I would hope you would agree with that.” Obama added, his contempt for this line of questioning barely disguised, “Is that controversial?”
There was a notable absence at this event. Obama said the NRA is “just down the street,” yet no representative of the organization would take CNN up on an invitation to join this conversation. Instead, an NRA official, Chris Cox, appeared on Fox News’s The Kelly File during the CNN special to tell host Megyn Kelly that “we were offered one pre-screened question, so I’d rather sit with you, Megyn.”
Cox, who had no idea what Obama was saying on CNN because he was on-camera on Fox at the same time, dismissed Obama’s attempts to end gun violence as “a distraction from his failed policies.” Cox said the President “doesn’t have a basic level of respect [for] gun owners… This president wants you to believe that in order to love your children, you have to hate your firearms.” Cox called for “armed security officers guarding our kids at school.”
In other words, little was accomplished this evening, not even a sensible give-and-take discussion.
