'American Sniper' widow confronts Barack Obama over gun control

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

'American Sniper' widow confronts Barack Obama over gun control

Scott Bixby in New York
Friday 8 January 2016 16.38 GMT

The widow of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle confronted Barack Obama during a town hall meeting about guns on Thursday, putting the president on the defensive over what may be the final major domestic policy initiative of his presidency.

In the first – and perhaps most contentious – question of the meeting broadcast live on CNN, Taya Kyle told Obama that his plans for increased gun control measures such as universal background checks would not make Americans safer from gun violence, particularly mass shootings.

“We want to think that we can make a law and people will follow it,” Kyle said. But “by the very nature of their crime, they’re not following it. By the very nature of looking at the people who hurt our loved ones here, I don’t know that any of them would have been stopped by the background check.”

Kyle, whose Navy Seal husband was shot and killed at a Texas shooting range in February 2013, suggested that the president focus instead on the plummeting national crime rate, a sign that existing laws restricting access to firearms are enough.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/08/american-sniper-widow-confronts-barack-obama-over-gun-control

[louis-t]

1. I was desperately looking for 'the onion' in the URL.

Clueless woman.

[deathrind]

2. So in her world...

Last edited Sat Jan 9, 2016, 05:02 PM - Edit history (1)

All crimes are the same... shoplifting is = to shooting...ok.

To this day I still cannot understand the thought process that lead her husband to think it would be a good idea to take a soldier suffering from PTSD to a gun range.

[flamin lib]

4. Hey, that's over the top. Suggest you edit to sound less cruel and unfeeling. nt

[beardown]

5. She has a valid if incomplete point

Gun violence is trending down

Doesn't mean that you can't improve the situation with new measures, but it's headed in the right direction and many of the problems with gun violence are done by people that won't be stopped by legalities.

At a basic level she has a very valid point. If things are improving, don't mess with things. However, guns and guns violence are a very complex issue and guns are lethal enough to warrant examining improvements whenever possible. At a higher level, she has a point in that when "feel good", but ineffective measures are thrown at a problem they can actually be counter productive. An example would be a measure that does virtually nothing to reduce gun violence and that keeps gun rights voters voting repubs who then use their additional legislative power to pass legislation that guts mental health support that worsens gun deaths.

Strange issue for her to get all fired up about, but I know little of her background.