January 08, 2016 11:36 AM UTC

Obama Answers Local Pro-Gun Crime Victim With Respect

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• by: Colorado Pols

Last night, President Barack Obama held a televised town hall meeting at Virginia’s George Mason University to discuss his recent action to tighten up background checks on gun sales and better track disqualifying mental illness among prospective gun buyers. In the audience at yesterday’s town hall was a Colorado woman who was sexually assaulted at UNC in 2006. Kimberly Corban’s testimony in 2013 before the Colorado legislature against gun safety legislation resulted in controversy after remarks from Democratic Sen. Evie Hudak in response to another woman’s testimony on the same bill were perceived by some as insensitive.

Corban’s questioning of President Obama at yesterday’s town hall seems to have been highly anticipated by gun rights supporters, who immediately attacked the President after the exchange in a similar manner to the attacks on Sen. Hudak in 2013.

The problem is, nothing that could even be considered even remotely insensitive to Ms. Corban occurred yesterday. As the Washington Post reports:

Corban’s story did not exactly have a happy ending — or, at least, the ending is ever-evolving. Though her assailant is now serving 24 years to life in prison, she struggled with depression, PTSD and stress-related seizures. And, speaking about her experience, she came to realize how important it was for women to have access to guns to protect themselves.

Then, Thursday night on national television, she got to confront the man she thought wanted to take her guns away: President Obama.

“As a survivor of rape, and now a mother to two small children — you know, it seems like being able to purchase a firearm of my choosing, and being able to carry that wherever my — me and my family are — it seems like my basic responsibility as a parent at this point,” she told Obama during “Guns in America,” CNN’s town hall, after the president announced executive orders on gun control Tuesday.

“I have been unspeakably victimized once already, and I refuse to let that happen again to myself or my kids. So why can’t your administration see that these restrictions that you’re putting to make it harder for me to own a gun, or harder for me to take that where I need to be is actually just making my kids and I less safe?”

Turning to the CNN transcript of the event, here is Obama’s response to her question:

OBAMA: Well, Kimberly, first of all, obviously — you know, your story is horrific. The strength you’ve shown in telling your story and, you know, being here tonight is remarkable, and so — really proud of you for that.

I just want to repeat that there’s nothing that we’ve proposed that would make it harder for you to purchase a firearm. [Pols emphasis] And — now, you may be referring to issues like concealed carry, but those tend to be state-by-state decisions, and we’re not making any proposals with respect to what states are doing. They can make their own decisions there.

So there really is no — nothing we’re proposing that prevents you or makes it harder for you to purchase a firearm if you need one.

Obama then notes that there are arguments on both sides of the debate over whether owning a gun makes a person safer from crime. Statistically there are incidents where individuals successfully defend themselves with a gun, but many others where people are actually victimized with their own guns turned against them.

But the bottom line? Obama is not trying to take her guns away:

In the meantime, all I’m focused on is making sure that a terrible crime like yours that was committed is not made easier because somebody can go on the Internet and just buy whatever weapon they want without us finding out whether they’re a criminal or not.

The biggest difference between 2013 exchange between sexual assault victim Amanda Collins and Sen. Hudak and yesterday’s questioning of Obama is that Obama began by expressing compassion for the terrible crime committed against this woman. Politically and morally that is absolutely where you must begin. From there, Obama patiently explains that what he has ordered will not make it more difficult for her to defend herself and her family against an assailant. Then and only then does he proceed to discuss the large body of evidence that suggests gun ownership does not make your family safer at all–the unfortunate reality that incensed gun rights activists when Hudak said it.

The somewhat less compassionate exchange between another assault victim and Sen. Hudak in 2013 was heavily exaggerated and misused to incite gun owners to join the recall campaigns in retaliation for the passage of gun safety bills that year. Judging from the similar attempt underway to gin up outrage over Obama’s sensible and inoffensive answers to Corban’s questions yesterday evening, it looks like the gun lobby really hoped for a repeat.

But nothing we can see here makes President Obama look bad, even a little. He took an unfriendly question in a town hall he had organized–itself a commendable act in this scripted day and age–and handled it…well, presidentially.

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CORRECTION: Although Kimberly Corban (then Kimberly Weeks) testified in 2013 against gun safety legislation in Colorado, the exchange between Senator Evie Hudak and Weeks originally described in this story in fact involved Amanda Collins, another local victim of sexual assault. Weeks, now a gun rights activist, was present for this exchange and has frequently cited it in subsequent news reports. Nonetheless we regret the error and have taken steps to correct it above.