In response to a pro-gun question during a June 1 town hall event in Indiana, President Obama suggested he is not as anti-gun as the NRA claims.
According to AOL.com, Obama said:
I don’t care how many times the NRA says it. I’m about to leave office. There have been more guns sold since I have been president than just about any time in U.S. history. There are enough guns for every man, woman and child in this country. And at no point have I ever, ever proposed confiscating guns from responsible gun owners. So it’s just not true.
Obama says he has never “proposed confiscating guns” and on those grounds he claims that he is not that anti-gun after all. The problem with this claim is it’s not true.
For example, on October 3 Obama reacted to the attack in the Umpqua Community College gun-free zone by suggesting it may be time to think about an Australian-style gun ban. He said:
We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.
Moreover, his executive gun controls do include a gun ban for some social security beneficiaries–a literal prohibition on the purchase of firearms–and his administration has been marked by gun control push after gun control push in the wake of the December 2012 attack in the gun-free zone in Sandy Hook Elementary.
So Obama has broached the subject of confiscation, his administration is currently implementing a gun ban for some social security recipients, and he has been pushing for an “assault weapons” ban, an expansion of background checks, and other gun controls since January 2013. Yet he suggests the NRA is misrepresenting him by describing him as anti-gun.
AWR Hawkins in the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter @AWRHawkins