Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association (NRA), challenged President Obama to an hour-long debate on guns.
“I'll meet you for a one-on-one, one-hour debate, with a mutually agreed moderator, on any network that will take it,” LaPierre said in an 8-minute video, which blasts Obama for his lengthy record of opposition the private use of firearms.
The video is apparently prompted by Obama’s new White House initiative that seeks to crack down on the sale of guns through more rigorous back-ground checks.
The president doesn’t have legal authority to unilaterally change how gun sales are regulated, but he does have to power to shift resources to toughen the enforcement of existing laws.
The NRA had declined to send representatives to a town hall meeting Obama held on gun control earlier in January, referring to it as a “public relations spectacle,” according to USA Today. In the challenge, LaPierre specifically said that the debate would have no “pre-screened questions.”
