Because I don’t have cable, I had to watch President Obama’s “Town Hall” forum 10 minutes at a time on “CNN Go” free trial, so I missed a lot of it. Based on what I did see, I think the forum was a lot less stacked toward the gun control side than I expected it to be. Obama was asked some hard questions, which he not so delicately danced around. Overall, I don’t think things went all that well for him.
He did an awful lot of describing serious federal crimes as “loopholes,” perhaps channeling Joan Peterson’s “if it happens, it’s legal” philosophy. But unlike her, he knows better. This was his normal schtick of throwing out half-truths and outright lies to low-information types, while absolutely enraging people who actually understand this stuff.
The brazen lying was astonishing. Intentional or incompetent is the only mystery.
Did you see the part where the powerful leader of the patriarchy mansplained why women are too weak to can’t handle guns?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/08/meet-kimberly-corban-the-pro-gun-rape-survivor-who-challenged-obama-on-cnn/
And spreaking of the president… looks like he’s threatening the rest of the party.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/01/08/obama-to-dems-back-my-gun-control-play-or-i-wont-campaign-for-you/
Which does show a level of ego investment on his part.
From what I read the NRA was actually invited but declined to go and listen to his crap when they were only allowed one question. But I’m thinking they should have gone, as they could have asked a very good question.
The NRA has been willfully ignoring PR for the last few years, displayng no regard for how it will look to the public, and seems to be appealing exclusively to its very low-information members. As an NRA member, this frustrates me.
You are correct. They only have 3 options. 1) participate in reasoned discourse and piss off their Ted Nugent cash-cow base. 2)Go with the shrill bumper sticker arguments and convince the rest of America you are crazy, or 3) shut up.
They are kind of stuck on Obama’s proposal, however. It is really not that controversial and there is no reason for them not to say “there are things here we can work with the administration on,” but they can’t for reason #1.
Their statement on it is ridiculous. They’ve painted themselves in a corner.
Having said that, I don’t blame them for skipping this. They would have been “one voice of many” on the issue instead of the leader on it.
“I was court martialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. “
Maybe it was their absence that forced the administration to make it more fair, “See we can be fair, the NRA is just being childish.” In that regard gun owners came away winning a lot more than losing, at the expense of a small loss to the NRA.
On the other hand if they went, it may have been an hour of just brow beating the NRA. In which case neither the NRA or gun owners win much.
This
I tried to watch but decide to hell with it. Decided to wait for your take on it.
I thought it was good. Obama danced a lot. Kudos to CNN and Anderson Cooper. Cooper asked good questions, but he missed some really obvious follow ups (Like “do you still support banning semi auto weapons?”). Also, he gave the pres a gift with that “conspiracy” comment. I got the sense from his comments after he knew it and regretted it.
Amazing what happens when the nit is off teleprompter…
I wish somebody called him out on “smart guns”. He said he doesn’t understand why anyone would oppose having this “choice” and how he’s not saying they should be the only guns available- but of course that’s not how it went down.
Anderson hit him hard with the Australia question right away, and Obama completely ducked it. I wish Anderson stayed with it. Obama keeps spewing how he doesn’t want to “take everyone’s guns”, but Austraila didn’t take everyone’s gun either. They just took a whole heck of a lot of guns- and clearly this confiscation is unacceptable to American gun owners. He keeps going on about how the NRA manufactures an “imagined fiction” to argue against, but that in itself is an “imagined fiction” created by Obama.
Yeah, I watched that part about Australia too. I applaud Cooper for asking that opening question, and I condemn him for failing to follow up when Obama filibustered and deflected away an actual answer.
Our grifter prez at his finest.
Related to this whole push, and the “executive actions” to shut down internet sales (really private transfers):
ATF sends cease and desist letter to Facebook gun group admins.
For those that don’t want to link, looks like ATF is sending “cease and desist” letters to admins of groups on social media that facilitate private firearms transfers with a threat of prosecution as an unlicensed dealer. This obviously isn’t an official source and I’d like to see some more confirmation from additional sources, including some that are more reputable. But the timing would be right with blasting out a bunch of letters to “suspected dealers” timed with the announcement of the EAs.
How many admins, web hosts, promoters, etc will continue and roll the dice against the house in court when they get this type of letter? Armslist is the biggest one I can think of and a quick Google shows their domain as worth a quarter of a million bucks. I doubt they have the war chest to fight a protracted legal battle against the administration.
Sorry to be a bother Sebastian, but there are some links in the comments that are buggering up the formatting.
Fixed