'American Sniper' Widow Taya Kyle to President Obama: 'Celebrate That We're Good People'
President Barack Obama got into a lengthy debate with the wife of the late "American Sniper" Chris Kyle, Taya, in a CNN town hall.
During the televised event that discussed the president's proposal over stricter gun laws, Taya presented her take on why Obama's proposal would not work.
According to Business Insider, the famous widow asked the president on why he isn't promoting the feeling of "hope" to average Americans and mentioned that over the last 30 years, violent crime had made a significant downturn.
She said to Obama, "Celebrate that we're good people and 99.9 percent of us are never going to kill anyone."
Huffington Post published a blog last year detailing how violent crime consistently went down, but the public perception still remains the same.
Back in 2015, it was noted that the crime rate fell by more than half compared to its peak in 1991. And in 2013, it was recorded that crime in America is at its lowest since the 1970s.
However, even though it's steadily dropping, the average American is still not aware how or even why it did in the first place. It's amazing that despite the numbers to back it up, citizens are still scared more than ever.
Some attributed this perception to sensationalist journalism and the rise of "virality" on social media.
In President Obama's defense, Fox News reported that he did agree with Taya on promoting the "message of hope" and concurred that most cities are safer now compared to 10 or 20 years ago, but argued that people would not know it just by "watching television."
Obama went on to say that despite the statistics, crime still exists and said that places with less strict gun laws and high ownership are the ones where the crime rate remains high.
Moreover, the president said that his proposed gun laws are not restricting law-abiding citizens from owning firearms, he just wants to keep it away from the wrong hands. He also noted that his critics are exaggerating it.
Obama also noted that his proposal is not there to eliminate every gun-related crimes. He compared that, "In the same way that we don't eliminate all traffic accidents, but, over the course of 20 years, traffic accidents get lower - there's still tragedies."
Obama said that, "There's still drunk drivers. There's still people who don't wear their seat belts, but over time, that violence was reduced, and so families are spared."
Finally, the president clarified that all he wants is to make commiting a crime harder by putting a limit to those who can easily purchase a firearm on the Internet without any background check.
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