CNN's Acosta Shouts Gun Question at Trump After President's Solemn Remarks
CNN’s Jim Acosta broke the solemnity of President Donald Trump’s address to the nation regarding Wednesday’s Florida tragic school shooting, yelling out as the chief executive began to exit the room whether he was “going to do something about guns.”
In remarks from the White House on Thursday morning, Trump said, “No child, no teacher, should ever be in danger in an American school. No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them goodbye in the morning.”
“Each person who was stolen from us yesterday had a full life ahead of them. A life filled with wondrous beauty and unlimited potential and promise,” the president observed. “And each one had a family to whom they meant everything in the world.”
Trump pledged, “Our administration is working closely with local authorities to investigate the shooting and learn everything we can. We are committed to working with state and local leaders to help secure our schools, and tackle the difficult issue of mental health.”
As Trump finished his remarks and began to leave the room, Acosta broke decorum and shouted at him, “Mr. President, why does this keep happening in America? Are you going to do something about guns?” to which the president, who clearly intended to take no questions, did not reply.
Acosta tweeted afterward, that the president failed to respond to him.
Many replied negatively to the CNN reporter’s tweet.
“Oh, you were showboating and he ignored you? I know you like to make every single story about you, but he’s not required to indulge you,” wrote one.
While another responded, “Pathetic Accosted. You are a disgrace.”
Still, others came to Acosta’s defense, saying they would like an answer to the question.
Democrat lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Diane Feinstein of California, have called for greater gun control measures in response to the shooting.
Feinstein tweeted that she has introduced legislation to impose a new assault weapons ban, pointing out that the shooter used an AR-15, which is a semi-automatic weapon that would be covered by the bill.
Dudley Brown, president of the National Association of Gun Rights, in a statement to The Western Journal, said, “The 10-year Feinstein ban (passed in the mid-1990s) on so-called ‘Assault Weapons’ and normal capacity magazines did nothing to reduce mass shootings or crimes, and was roundly dismissed as a failure, even by gun control fanatics.”
The Columbine High School shooting in Colorado — one of the most high profile of these terrible incidents, resulting in the deaths of 13 people — occurred in 1999 while the assault weapons ban was in effect.
Erich Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, agreed that more gun control measures will not address the mass shootings issue.
“(I)t is disgusting to see media pundits and politicians calling for gun control as the knee-jerk reaction to this tragedy,” he stated. “The fact is this tragedy happened in a gun free zone, where sadly over 98 percent of the public mass shootings occur.”
“Furthermore, anti-gun liberals tell us that these types of shootings don’t occur in other countries. But that’s a lie. The U.S. is not even in the top ten when one compares international death rates resulting from mass shootings,” said Pratt.
As to the prevalence of privately owned weapons in the U.S., Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro tweeted a chart following the Las Vegas shooting last October showing that the murder rate has been trending down for decades in the U.S., despite gun ownership increasing significantly.
In other words, there is no correlation between the prevalence of guns and incidents of violent crime involving guns.
Notably, the rate remained low and then decreased further after the assault weapons ban, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, expired in 2004.
As reported by The Western Journal, Acosta strongly implied Trump was a racist to his face in questioning at the White House last month.
The two have had several exchanges over the past year, with Trump labeling the correspondent as part of CNN’s “fake news” in January 2017, which he downgraded to “very fake news” the following month.
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