NRA Head Wayne LaPierre Challenges President Obama to Gun Debate
The executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) fired back at President Barack Obama on Thursday, one week after he announced his executive action on gun control and held a televised town hall explaining his proposal to curb gun violence.
Last week, the president delivered an emotional speech announcing his proposals to expand background checks and gun safety measures. He then held explained his plan to help combat gun violence a live town hall meeting on CNN titled "Guns in America."
At different parts of the town hall, both he and CNN's Anderson Cooper stated that the NRA refused to appear on the show despite the fact that their national headquarters was just blocks away from George Mason University, where the town hall was held.
"Our position is constantly mischaracterized. There's a reason that the NRA isn't here," said Obama at the town hall last Thursday, reports The New York Daily News. "You think they'd be prepared to have a debate with the President."
At another part during the town hall, Obama stated that part of the reason Americans don't support his common sense measures on gun control is because "the NRA has convinced many of its members that somebody is going to come get your guns."
A week later, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre issued a video response to the president, slamming his executive action proposals and challenging him to a 60-minute nationally-televised debate on guns.
"I'll meet you for a one-on-one, one-hour debate - with a mutually agreed moderator - on any network that will take it," LaPierre declared in an 8-minute video posted to the NRA's website.
"No prescreened questions and no gasbag answers. Americans will judge for themselves who they trust and believe on this issue - you or the NRA. Let's see if you're game for a fair debate," he said.
The NRA leader also accused Obama of not being aggressive on stopping gun violence in his hometown of Chicago.
"If the President really wanted to make Americans safer, he'd pick up the phone and tell his Justice Department to flip Chicago upside down until every criminal with a gun, criminal gangbanger with a gun, and drug dealer with a gun is arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned to the fullest extent of the law," LaPierre said.
He also pledged that the NRA would aggressively fight against his executive actions.
"Make no mistake: with an opportunity for the president to score political points and claim a cheap victory, this executive action is a bright red line that law-abiding gun owners should cross at their own peril," LaPierre said. "Let me be clear: the NRA will fight this illegal overreach more aggressively than we have ever challenged anything."
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