President Obama said that he has invited leaders of the National Rifle Association to the White House for a discussion on gun violence, but, like Thursday’s town hall meeting in Virginia, they have declined.
“We have invited them repeatedly but if you listen to the rhetoric, it is so over the top,” Obama said. He said the NRA ignores that “there’s nothing else in our lives that we purchase where we don’t try to make it a little safer,” and listed examples of other goods the federal government has encouraged manufacturers to make safer, such as automobiles and toys.
“I have said this repeatedly, I am happy to meet with them,” Obama told moderator Anderson Cooper of the NRA. “I am happy to talk to them. But the conversation has to be based on facts ands truth about what we’re actually proposing, not some imaginary fiction in which ‘Obama is trying to take away your guns,'” the president said, mimicking what he said is NRA rhetoric.
“And, by the way, there’s a reason why the NRA is not here,” Obama said about mischaracterization of his position. “Since this is the main reason they exist, you would think they’d be prepared to have a debate.” The NRA earlier Thursday said it wouldn’t participate in the event, which the group called a “media circus.”
The head of the NRA’s lobbying arm, Chris Cox, said he has declined Obama’s entreaties to sit down and chat.
“I’m not really interested in going over and talking to the president who doesn’t have a basic level of respect or understanding of the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners in the country,” Cox said.
Echoing White House spokesman Josh Earnest’s comments earlier Thursday, Obama said one of the reasons gun sales spike whenever there is a mass shooting or he discusses changing federal gun laws is because the NRA purposely incites fear in the public that guns will no longer be available.
“The NRA has convinced many of its members that someone is going to come grab your guns … it’s a great advertising mechanism but it is not necessary,” Obama said, adding that guns are abundantly available.
