President Obama talked to both supporters and opponents of stronger gun laws at a CNN-sponsored town hall Thursday night, in what’s being described as an unusually civil and substantive exchange on a contentious topic. Earlier this week, Obama took what modest steps he could to tighten loopholes in gun laws without congressional action—and even though once the president takes action and an issue becomes partisan, polling support for things like universal background checks predictably dropped, public support was still substantial:
A new CNN/ORC poll finds 67% say they favor the changes Obama announced, and 32% oppose them. Support for the executive actions, designed to expand background checks to cover more gun purchases made online or at gun shows and to make it easier for the FBI to complete background checks efficiently, comes across party lines, with majorities of Democrats (85%), independents (65%) and Republicans (51%) in favor of them. Majorities back the measures across most demographic groups, in fact, including 57% of gun owners and 56% of rural residents.
Despite all of the statistics showing the a gun in the home is much more likely to be used against a family member than an assailant, Obama still had to answer exactly that kind of question. But answer it he did, if only the people who are already ignoring the facts could hear such an answer:
Another pro-gun view came from Kimberly Corban, a rape survivor with two small children who worried that the president’s proposals would make it harder for her to protect her family. “Why can’t your administration see that these restrictions that you’re putting to make it harder for me to own a gun or harder for me to take that where I need to be is actually just making my kids and I less safe?” asked Corban. The president responded that nothing in his proposals would, in fact, complicate her path to gun ownership. He treaded lightly on whether having a gun at home is a good idea. “You have to be pretty well trained in order to fire a weapon against somebody who’s assaulting you and catches you by surprise. And what is also true is that there’s always the possibility that a firearm in a home leads to a tragic accident.” Then he circled around to Corban’s assailant: “You certainly would like to make it a little harder for that assailant to have also had a gun. You certainly would want to make sure that if he gets released, that he now can’t do what he did to you to somebody else. And it’s going to be easier for us to prevent him getting a gun if there’s a strong . . . background check system in place.”
Shockingly, the NRA declined to participate in the event, electing to stay home and tweet surly thoughts about it.
CNN gets points for hosting what was reportedly a thoughtful and productive event, but loses most of those points for raging false equivalences in its efforts to pat itself on the back for that event:
It was the kind of civilized exchange that some Americans thought they were in line for when Obama took office in 2009 promising to cleanse American politics of its "petty grievances" and "recriminations and worn-out dogmas."
But the partisanship strangling Washington soon had Obama complaining that Republicans were obstructionist and unreasonable while GOP leaders saw him as polarizing and patronizing. The result has been that this side of the President's character has not always been on display.
Seriously, CNN, can you argue Republicans haven’t been obstructionist and unreasonable? Dozens of Obamacare repeal votes, one government shutdown, and numerous other shutdown threats later, can you really say they’ve been anything else? On this specific issue, they blocked legislation that more than 80 percent of Americans support—what is that but obstruction? Congratulations for the event and all, but seriously, sometimes both sides don’t do it.