Email Shows CNN's Invite Only Gun Control "Town Hall" With Obama is a Total Sham

OH give him time. He is trying to figure out how to spin this one

LTC (Join to see) I will agree not ALL liberals want to take guns away but will you also agree that there are one on the far left that wish to do just that?

Also you have to admit that the crowd was a friendly crowd that on the most part support what the president did and aren't willing to accept that he has lied about the effect of what he did. We all know even the people that wont admit it that bad guys don't buy guns at gun shows. They don't pay full price for them when they can get them for $20.00 on the street and that every thing the president did only affects honest law abiding people. So I will admit not ALL liberals want to disarm America but can you admit that the President lied to America and what he did will have zero effect on the use of guns among bad guys??

PO2 Mark Saffell - I'm sure there are some liberals that would like to see all the guns rounded up. But none of those are part of the Obama administration. So the part I object to is not the notion that some liberal group somewhere would like to ban guns; the part I object to is when organizations like the NRA claim that that is President Obama's agenda, when it never has been.

As to the effectiveness of the background checks, I certainly agree that there are criminals that will get their guns from outside the system. But the checks do in fact catch many people who are not authorized to buy guns. Do all of them then go out and buy them on the street? I don't think so. If you are someone who has been raised in a pretty normal environment, and then develop a mental illness, for example, if you are turned away at a gun dealer, you may very well not know how to get a gun on the street. It's just like drugs, for example. I know it's possible to get heroin on the street, but the truth is if I suddenly had the need to do that, I wouldn't have a clue about who to see to get it.

I think I saw a statistic that said around 2 million people were turned away from gun shops last year. But I'm not sure about that number. I did read an article that said that around 1 in 30 online sales went to people that wouldn't qualify in a gun store. But I think an important point is that filling the "loopholes" about background checks won't really make it hard for people to get guns who qualify. Most who buy from dealers already go through the checks. So I see no downside to expanding the checks to all gun sales.

As for the audience in the townhall overall being supportive, that's not really a surprise. Numerous polls over the last couple of years show that around 80-90% of Americans agree that background checks should be universal. And that includes a majority of NRA members and republicans. So it would make sense that the audience would reflect those feelings. IMO CNN did a good job of inviting and featuring some very prominnent and persuasive gun control opponents in the Townhall meeting.

As for whether it was a true townhall, that's just a marketing thing by CNN. It was in the townhall format, where the President is on stage and the audience asks questions. To me, it is when people start trying to nitpick stuff like that demonstrates how broken our discourse has become. Rather than focus and discuss what was said, and what points were made, people want to talk about whether it was really a townhall or not. That's sad, IMO.

I support background checks. An although the president made it out that background checks aren't done at gun shows us not true. Also why should I have to pay $60.00 to sell a gun to my son?

PO2 Mark Saffell - to clarify a couple of things. Checks are required at gun shows only by those who are licensed dealers but not by someone claiming to be a private seller. Many sellers have hidden under the private seller or collector exemptions to bybass the law and avoid the requirement for background checks (both at gun shows and online). The new guidance directs the ATF to crack down on those people who are really dealers and require them to be licensed.

The new guidelines do not affect the "one off" type individual sales by private owners, so you would not have to get a background check to sell to your son. Some states that have stricter laws requiring checks for all sales have an immediate family exemption as well. As for the $60, those dealers are ripping people off. In Colorado the law states that a dealer can't charge more than $10 to do a check for a private seller. And in CA, the state does the check for $19. But as I mentioned, the plan by President Obama does not require checks for those sales anyway