IT WOULD be too upbeat to call a televised town hall meeting on Thursday night between President Barack Obama and gun-rights advocates a dialogue of the deaf. For Mr Obama and his critics could hear one another just fine during the one-hour meeting, broadcast by CNN, a cable news channel. What came across, with dismaying clarity, was that this president’s critics listen to what he says about guns, and do not believe a word of it.
To CNN’s credit, the meeting was as well-managed, constructive and calm as could be expected, given the topic. Yet it would be a miracle if it changed a single mind among those watching.
In recent years gun lobbyists and their political allies have successfully transformed the debate about firearms. Where once they argued that the Founding Fathers gave Americans a constitutional right to bear arms, they now cast ownership of lethal weapons as something closer to a duty—declaring that an armed citizenry is the strongest bulwark against government tyranny, and the ultimate defence that the law-abiding have against criminals and, most recently, terrorists. This has worked. A poll taken for...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1ODONiK
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