NRA sticks to script in rebuttal to Obama’s speech

Less than half an hour after President Obama finished his speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Rifle Association published a fully produced five-minute video rebuttal.

The gun lobby’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, stuck to a familiar script dismissing the call for any new gun laws and advising that the solution to gun violence is enforcement of current federal laws.

“If the president held a press conference tomorrow morning and directed every federal jurisdiction to round up every felon with a gun, drug dealer with a gun and criminal gangbanger with a gun, law enforcement would have thousands of violent thugs in handcuffs and squad cars by sundown,” LaPierre said.

He’s also quick to mention the dichotomy between Chicago’s gun violence and gun laws, and to slam Hillary Clinton’s administration if she makes it into the White House.

The president listed national gun law reforms in his plan to improve relations between police and the communities they serve at the IACP’s annual convention Tuesday in Chicago.

In the latter half of the hour-long speech, Obama called for reform of federal gun laws, suggesting a possible assault weapons ban and expanding national background checks so buyers could only obtain a gun in their home state. He vowed to continue calling attention to the issue until Congress acts.

His words echoed that of other speakers at the event like Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy who on Monday brought attention to lawmakers inactivity on advancing legislation to expand background checks.

Both Obama and McCarthy pointed out many illegal guns — roughly 60 percent — found in Chicago are traced back to areas in neighboring Indiana. Additionally, McCarthy also called for stiffer punishments for gun crimes along with tougher gun laws.

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