With thousands of people on both side of the Atlantic calling for CNN anchor Piers Morgan to stay out of their country, at least some of them are going to be disappointed.

At the weekend, Morgan responded to calls for his deportation – over comments he made about the gun control debate – by saying he would do it himself if Barack Obama did not take action in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings.

Calls for his deportation from the US began after he used his nightly CNN show to criticize gun control lobbyists, at one point calling the executive director of Gun Owners of America, Larry Pratt, "an unbelievably stupid man".

The comments drew a strong response. A a petition was created on the White House We The People website to "Deport British Citizen Piers Morgan for Attacking 2nd Amendment." It had more than 95,000 signatures by Monday morning, easily passing the 25,000 signature threshold that is needed to get an official response from the White House.

In a column for the British newspaper the Mail on Sunday at the weekend, Morgan offered a lengthy riposte to the petition. He wrote: "If you don't change your gun laws to at least try to stop this relentless tidal wave of murderous carnage, then you don't have to worry about deporting me.

"Although I love the country as a second home and one that has treated me incredibly well, I would, as a concerned parent first – and latterly, of a one-year-old daughter who may attend an American elementary school like Sandy Hook in three years' time – seriously consider deporting myself," Morgan said.

If he does choose to go back to Britain, he will presumably upset the more than 16,000 people who signed a petition to "Keep Piers Morgan in the USA" because "no one in the UK wants him back." There is also a petition on change.org addressed to UK home secretary Theresa May that asks to keep Morgan in the US as well.

Morgan, a father of four, said that his anger about the Sandy Hook shooting "turned to blind rage" when he saw how many people in the US reacted to the shooting by purchasing more guns, including the AR-15 assault rifle reportedly used in the shooting.

He said that American attitudes towards the British during revolutionary times helped make him the newest target in the US debate about gun control.

This gun debate is an ongoing war of verbal attrition in America – and I'm just the latest target, the advantage to the gun lobbyists being that I'm British, a breed of human being who burned down the White House in 1814 and had to be forcefully deported en masse, as no American will ever be allowed to forget – Special Relationship notwithstanding. It's no exaggeration to say that America's unique fondness for guns pretty much got cemented by hatred of us Brits and the War of Independence. But the main reason the more fervent gun-rights activists give is a fear of their own US federal government using its army to impinge on their freedom. The problem is that America's historical love of guns means the country is now awash with them – and with gun death.

He first began working in the US as a judge on America's Got Talent in 2007. Since then, there have been 12 mass shootings in the US. A week before he started working at CNN in January 2011, six people, including a nine-year-old girl, were killed outside a supermarket in Tuscon, Arizona.

"I've been shocked at how America's politicians have been cowed into a woeful, shameful virtual silence by the gun lobbyists and the all-powerful National Rifle Association in particular," Morgan said.

He then pointed out how American law prevents people from purchasing "a chocolate Kinder egg, or various French cheeses" but assault rifles can still be purchased at Walmart.

Morgan offered his recommendations for gun regulation, writing that there should be government buy-backs to reduce the large amount of guns already circulating in the US. He added that the government should confiscate all other assault weapons and imprison those who insist on keeping guns. "Either you ban these assault weapons completely, and really mean it, or you don't," Morgan said.

He added that the federal government should increase funding for mental health treatment in the US. Morgan said: "It's the lethal cocktail of mental instability and ready gun availability that is the key component in almost every American mass shooting."

He concluded by calling Sandy Hook shootings "the tipping point" for the US gun control debate and referenced successful efforts by other countries to reduce the amount of people killed by guns by employing stricter gun control laws.

"Fewer guns equals less gun murder, Morgan said. "This is not a 'pinko liberal' hypothesis. It's a simple fact"