Elliot Fineman, of the National Gun Victims Action Council, has penned an op ed on CNN.com calling for Obama to declare a “National State of Emergency for the Gun Violence Epidemic.”

He says this needs to “include universal REAL backgrounds checks, suspending the gun industry’s immunity from lawsuits, monitoring ammunition sales and banning those on the terror watch list from buying guns.”

Fineman goes on to say:

It is clear why a National State of Emergency scares the gun lobby and pro-gun lawmakers — it would neutralize them. My organization is encouraging a petition. As we tune in to CNN’s town hall meeting with Obama, here are my questions. What are yours? 1) Gun violence is a raging epidemic claiming 30,000 lives per year at a cost of $229 billion per year. Why have you not declared a state of emergency to halt the Gun Violence Epidemic? TRENDING: ANGRY LEFTIST Smacks 84-Year-Old Female Trump Supporter Across the Face at Trump Rally in Aliso Viejo -- Beats Another Senior (VIDEO) 2) Since the government is the largest purchaser of firearms, why not force the gun manufacturers to make smart guns (guns that will only fire if the fingerprint of the owner matches the trigger) by requiring that the government only purchase smart guns?

He also complains that the “gun lobby” has blocked “a computerized crime gun database at the ATF and a registry of gun owners so that we can identify people who have become unstable or radicalized since buying their guns”, that Obama’s recent executive orders “are largely symbolic because they won’t really solve the problem”, and says that “real background checks” would “include interviews with people who know the purchaser (family, neighbors, local police) and with the purchaser himself.”

Fineman’s son, Michael, was shot in gun control haven San Diego in 2006, and he claims that the killer was “legally” able to buy his gun, despite having served two runs in mental institutions.