The National Rifle Association (NRA) pushed back against President Obama’s calls for gun control in his State of the Union address, arguing the proposals would lead to “confiscation” of citizens’ firearms.
A new Web video released Tuesday night from the nation’s largest gun lobby sought to rebuff the president’s impassioned call for lawmakers to vote on a package of measures including bans on the sale of assault weapons, high-capacity clips and instituting mandatory background checks.
“President Obama gives a good speech and when you listen him talk about new gun laws, you may think he sounds reasonable,” says NRA executive director Chris Cox. “But what happens when you look at the details behind the president’s policies? How would they actually work?”
The NRA ad quotes a memo from the Department of Justice saying an assault weapons ban would only work in conjunction with a mandatory gun buyback program.
“This internal Justice Department memo says “an assault weapons ban is unlikely to have an impact on gun violence.” Unlikely, that is, unless it comes with something else,” Cox continues. “Obama’s experts say that a gun ban, like the one being debated right now in Congress, will not work without mandatory gun buybacks. Mandatory gun buyback – that’s government confiscation of legal firearms owned by honest citizens.”
Obama on Tuesday amplified his calls for Congress to take up the proposed measures, as he called attention to a number of victims of gun violence invited as guests in the House chamber. Obama said the gun measures he has proposed “deserve a vote” and said lawmakers owed it to the victims to move on the issue.
Those measures though are opposed by the nation’s largest gun lobby and face an uphill fight in both the House and Senate.
The NRA ad also focuses on universal background checks, which enjoy overwhelming public support and are presently one of the least controversial aspects of the gun control reform proposals being discussed in Congress.
“His own experts wrote that the effectiveness of universal background checks depends on requiring gun registration," the ad continues. “Requiring gun registration with the federal government? That’s an illegal abuse of privacy and freedom unprecedented in our freedom.
“So the Obama administration believes a gun ban will not work without mandatory gun confiscation and universal background checks will not work without requiring national gun registration,” the ad concludes. “Still think President Obama’s proposals sound reasonable?”
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