HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama is looking for ways to keep guns out of the hands of “a dangerous few” without depending on Congress to pass a law on the fraught subject of gun control.
He’s says he’ll meet his attorney general, Loretta Lynch, on Monday to see what executive actions might be possible. Steps to strengthen background checks could come this week.
“The gun lobby is loud and well organized in its defense of effortlessly available guns for anyone,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “The rest of us are going to have to be just as passionate and well organized in our defense of our kids.”
He said he gets so many letters from parents, teachers and children about the “epidemic of gun violence” that he can’t “sit around and do nothing.”
Obama recently directed staff at the White House to look into potential executive actions.
Currently, federally licensed firearms dealers are required to seek background checks on potential firearm purchasers. But advocacy groups say some of the people who sell firearms at gun shows are not federally licensed, increasing the chance of sales to customers prohibited by law from purchasing guns.
A source familiar with the administration’s efforts said Obama is expected to take executive action next week that would set a “reasonable threshold” for when sellers have to seek a background check. That person didn’t know whether it would be based on the number of guns sold or revenue generated through gun sales.
The source, a member of a gun control advocacy group, was not authorized to discuss details before the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. White House officials won’t confirm the timing.
In his efforts to work around a Congress that has often been politically gridlocked, Obama has made aggressive use of executive power, particularly on immigration. It has been an increasingly effective presidential tool. And while legal scholars are divided on whether Obama has accelerated or merely continued a drift of power toward the executive branch, there’s little debate that he’s paved a path for his successor.
Depending on who succeeds him, many Obama backers could rue the day they cheered his “pen-and-phone” campaign to get past Republican opposition in Congress. The unilateral steps he took to raise environmental standards and ease the threat of deportation for millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally may serve as precedent for moves they won’t cheer.
The National Rifle Association opposes expanded background check systems. The organization’s Institute for Legislative Action says studies have shown that people sent to state prison because of gun crimes typically get guns through theft, the black market or family and friends.
Also, many purchases by criminals are made from straw purchasers who pass background checks. “No amount of background checks can stop these criminals,” says the group’s website.
Obama has consistently expressed frustration after mass shootings, saying it shouldn’t be so easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm to get his or her hands on a gun.
Going into his final year in office, Obama said his New Year’s resolution is to move forward on unfinished business.
“That’s especially true for one piece of unfinished business, that’s our epidemic of gun violence,” Obama said in his weekly address.
He said a bipartisan bill from three years ago requiring background checks for almost everyone had huge support, including among a majority of NRA households. But the Senate blocked it.
“Each time, we’re told that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, so we shouldn’t do anything,” he said. “We know that we can’t stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one?”
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With respect, Mr. President, the single most important thing you can do is to make sure that Wayne LaPierre never repeats his boast from 2000 that the NRA has “a president where we work out of their office.”
I, for one, am sick and tired of subsidizing the gun industry.
A modest proposal: order DOJ to perform an economic analysis of the annual societal cost of gun violence, considering
An excise tax on guns would seem to be an appropriate offset, but would do nothing about the 300M+ guns already in circulation. Tip of the hat to the late Sen. Moynihan, a user fee on bullets would be more effective. The paltry surtax currently levied on bullets to fund ATF, yielding pennies per round, is clearly insufficient. By my rough calculation, something along the lines of $10 per bullet would be a good ballpark estimate for the fee needed to compensate society for gun mayhem.
It must be liberating to be in your last term and be able to stick this stuff in the GOPers faces. Even simple background checks are too much for these fuckers. I hope he makes their lives even more miserable in 2016
This is true. But, the other way of looking at the NRA’s study results is that a gun sold to an honest, law-abiding citizen at the beginning of a year is many times (I believe the statistic is something like 10-50 depending on the threshold definition for self defense with a gun) more likely to be stolen and end up on the black market by the end of the year, than to be used in a self defense situation that year, and only marginally less likely to kill someone in the house (via accident or escalated altercation) than an intruder. So, yes, the majority of gun crime and violence in the US is not going to be affected by background checks.
We need to stop lumping unlike things together, though. There is a large body of gun violence which happens because well-meaning people lose control of their guns or lose control of their tempers. There is a smaller but still significant body of gun violence that happens because it is incredibly laughably easy for a mentally unstable person with a history of violence to obtain a gun, and then use that gun to perpetrate violence on friends, family, or co-workers, or less commonly random strangers. That latter set of victims is who background checks can help. Refusing to help them because of the former larger group is like refusing to vaccinate for polio because most people die from heart disease anyway.
Looking at that larger group, though, I am glad that the NRA finally agrees that current laws are nowhere near effective at preventing them. I am glad that the NRA is finally concerned about black market guns - the kind predominately sold at gun shows and through private sellers. Lets work with that. And, the NRA now wants to identify and prosecute straw purchasers, presumably in the only possible way which is a gun registry which links each gun sold to the person who bought it; welcome aboard the rational gun measures train, NRA! Also, the NRA is now also acknowledging that friends and family who supply criminals with guns should be held liable. We can work with that too. It is so great to have the NRA finally acknowledging reality and determined to enact truly effective gun safety measures.
Oh, I guess that’s not what they meant to say.
Yeah, what stood out for me was the ease with which other people facilitate the possession and use of guns by the violent or mentally ill. Theft? Why weren’t the guns secure before they were stolen? Black market? How do they think those guns move into the stream? Family and friends? Who are these people more likely to injure than family and friends? And straw purchasers? They would stand out like sore trigger fingers if there was any follow up on background checks. Alas no financing to prevent any of it.
Much as I love what the President is doing, someone else suggested homeowner’s insurance is the way to go. Gun in the house? Premiums go up. Lie on the policy application and something happens to an innocent person? Prosecute for fraud and deny the claim. Make them pay everything they own, then settle the suit with the victim. Hit these mothers where it hurts - free enterprise.