Days after announcing new executive actions to tighten controls on gun ownership, President Barack Obama is making his pitch to the public with a nationally televised town hall style meeting.

Obama plans to sit down Thursday with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and take questions from a live audience at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, in the suburbs of Washington DC.

Earlier this week, the president rolled out a series of new measures requiring, among other things, more gun sellers to get licenses and more gun buyers to undergo background checks.

Republican lawmakers, who rejected Obama’s attempts to tighten gun regulations in 2013, say the president overstepped his authority by issuing the new rules, which they say will not help stem gun violence.

The issue of gun control has sharply divided the American public. A CNN/ORC poll, conducted in mid-December, found 48 percent of respondents favored stricter gun control laws, while 51 percent opposed them.

CNN says the town hall audience will include both those who support and oppose additional gun regulations, though the National Rifle Association, the country’s most powerful gun rights group, has declined to participate.

Source: VOA [xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

  anderson cooper, cnn, control, gun, National, obama, president, reduction, speech, televised, town hall