The President said ‘common sense’ gun laws are achievable (Picture: AP/Getty)

Barack Obama has blamed the National Rifle Association and the notion that he is attacking the Second Amendment for him being unable to regulate guns.

Speaking earlier this month, prior to the terrorist attack on gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida that left 50 people dead, the President spoke of his frustration at being unable to stop certain citizens buying firearms.

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In particular, he said he was informed about an ‘ISIL sympathizer’ who can buy as much weaponry as desired despite being known to the FBI.

After an interview at a town hall in Indiana, the President took questions from the audience including one from gun shop owner Doug Rhude.




Mr Rhude asked Obama why he and Hillary Clinton want to implement gun control laws that would affect the ‘good guys’.

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Vigils have been held across America for the victims (Picture: EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO)

Omar Mateen killed at least 50 people (Picture: Myspace/Handout via Reuters)

In response, Obama insisted the Democrats are not ‘hell-bent’ on taking away guns, admitting ‘there are enough guns for every man, woman and child in this country’.

And his claim about possible terrorists being able to freely purchase firearms show the terrifying truth about the lack of gun regulation in the US.

(There are) people who we know have been on ISIL websites, living here in the United States, US citizens, and we’re allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, but because of the National Rifle Association, I cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun. This is somebody who is a known ISIL sympathizer. And if he wants to walk in to a gun store or a gun show right now and buy as much — as many weapons and ammo as he can, nothing’s prohibiting him from doing that, even though the FBI knows who that person is.

Addressing Mr Rhude, Obama said ‘common sense’ gun laws are realistic, but future proposals cannot be seen as a ‘tyrannical destruction of the Second Amendment’.

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He said: ‘So, sir, I just have to say, respectfully, that there is a way for us to have common sense gun laws.

‘There is a way for us to make sure that lawful, responsible gun owners like yourself are able to use them for sporting, hunting, protecting yourself.

‘But the only way we’re going to do that is if we don’t have a situation in which anything that is proposed is viewed as some tyrannical destruction of the Second Amendment.

‘And that’s how the issue too often gets framed.’

There were terrifying scenes as the gunman massacred revellers in Pulse (Picture: AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)