Obama calls for tougher laws but says he’s not trying ‘to take everybody’s guns away’

US President Barack Obama has called for tougher gun laws but insisted that he is not trying to take away people’s firearms.

Speaking to police chiefs in Chicago on Tuesday, Obama said, “Some of you are watching certain television stations or listening to certain radio programs, please do not believe this notion that somehow I’m out to take everyone’s guns away.”

“Every time a mass shootings happens, one of the saddest ironies is suddenly the purchase of guns and ammunition jumps up because folks scared into thinking that, ‘Obama’s gonna use this as an excuse to take away our Second Amendment rights,’” he added. “Nobody’s doing that."

"We’re talking about common-sense measures to make criminals don’t get them, to make sure background checks work, to make sure that we’re protecting ourselves,” he noted.

Moments earlier, Obama spoke out in favor of more gun regulations such as expanded background checks and a ban on assault weapons.

The US president tried to convince law enforcement officials that implementing tougher national gun laws would reduce the number of police officers killed in the line of duty.

Gun production has more than doubled under the Obama administration, according to a report released in July.

Some believe that the increase in the number of gun owners is indicative of the fact that they are concerned about new restrictions on their Second Amendment rights.

However, gun safety advocates say there is “no correlation” between the rise in firearms sales and Obama’s gun policies.

The gun industry is using a “scare tactic” to increase gun sales, said Mark Prentice, spokesman for Americans for Responsible Solutions, which is the gun safety group run by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson.

“The gun lobby seizes on those fears and uses scare tactics and doomsday rhetoric in order to sell more guns,” Prentice noted.

During the Clinton administration, the rate of gun production decreased by 9 percent, while it increased by 18 percent under the George W. Bush administration.

Under Obama, however, gun production soared 140 percent, reaching 10.8 million firearms in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available.

Over 6,000 people have been killed and over 13,000 people have been injured by gun in the United States since January 1, 2015, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

About 4.5 million firearms are sold annually in the country at a cost of 2 to 3 billion dollars.

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