As promised, the White House is wasting no time in coming up with solutions to gun violence following the shooting in Newtown, Conn. And the early word suggests a pitched battle with the gun rights community is ahead.
Vice President Biden promised on Thursday to present recommendations from his gun violence task force on Jan. 15, a month and a day after the Newtown shootings.
At a brief appearance Thursday ahead of his day of meetings with gun rights advocates, Biden previewed what those recommendations might be, saying he has had “a lot of discussion” about closing the so-called “gun show loophole” and saying “I’ve never heard so much talk about high-capacity magazines” as he has during the meetings of his task force.
Biden went beyond the gun show loophole, saying he had heard a lot about “universal background checks during private sales.” Should that and the magazine ban make it into a final White House package, expect both to garner serious opposition from gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association.
Biden also said he’s held discussions on “the whole question of the ability of any federal agency to do any research on the issue of gun violence.” According to the White House pool report of the appearance, Biden “compared the current limits on federal data gathering with the 1970s restrictions on federal research over the cause of traffic fatalities” and said here was a need to gather information on ‘what kind of weapons are used most to kill people’ and ‘what kind of weapons are trafficked weapons.'”
