Gun-control groups fume over debate omission

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wasn’t the only one upset by the questioning at Sunday night’s presidential debate.

Gun control advocates are also frustrated that the moderators — CNN’s Anderson Cooper and ABC News’s Martha Raddatz — did not ask Trump of Hillary Clinton about gun violence.

{mosads}Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, accused the moderators of “turning a blind eye” to the issue.

“This debate was an opportunity for the anchors to step aside and for the American people to ask the questions that mattered most to them,” Gross said in a statement. “And what mattered most to the American people, by a margin of a quarter-million votes, was gun violence and what each candidate would do about it. By ignoring that question, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz robbed Americans of their voice. They turned a blind eye to the issue foremost on voters’ minds.”

The second presidential debate of 2016 was set up like a town hall, where voters from the St. Louis area had the chance to ask questions of both candidates. 

The bipartisan Open Debate Coalition posed a series of questions Americans voted to ask the candidates. The most popular question: “Would you support requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales?”

The second-most popular question: “How will you ensure the Second Amendment is protected?”

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, briefly spoke about guns without being prompted by the moderators. 

“I respect the Second Amendment, but I believe there should be comprehensive background checks and we should close the gun show loophole and close the online loophole and we should try to save as many lives as we possibly can,” Clinton said toward the end of the debate, according to the Brady Campaign.