US President Barack Obama yesterday was scheduled to introduce a raft of executive actions to try to reduce US gun violence, bypassing Congress and launching a bitter election year fight.
Kicking off his last year in the White House with a defiant show of executive power, Obama is ignoring congressional opposition to take a series of unilateral steps to regulate gun sales and curb illicit purchases.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the measures would tighten rules on who must register as a gun dealer, narrow the “gun show” loophole that allow buyers to dodge background checks and a crackdown on “straw purchases” that see weapons purchased through intermediaries.
Photo: Reuters
It would also encourage the Pentagon, with its vast buying power, to procure weapons from manufacturers who use “gun safety technology” such as fingerprint scanners.
Obama was scheduled to discuss the new measures — which Republicans who control Congress, weapons makers and gun enthusiasts have already lambasted as an infringement of constitutional freedoms — in the East Room of the White House.
About 30,000 people die in gun violence every year in the US, most by suicide.
During Obama’s seven years as president, he has often shown flashes of anger and frustration at Congress’s refusal to tighten gun controls, most notably after the mass slaughter of Connecticut schoolchildren, South Carolina churchgoers and Colorado movie watchers.
The measures will stop well short of introducing universal background checks or registering or collecting some of the more than 300 million guns already thought to be in circulation in the US, moves that would likely need congressional approval.
Obama on Monday said that his executive actions were “not going to solve every violent crime in this country. It’s not going to prevent every mass shooting. It’s not going to keep every gun out of the hands of a criminal.”
“It will potentially, save lives in this country” and spare families heartache, he said.
However, even in taking limited measures, by acting alone and against the will of Congress, Obama has invited political and legal maelstrom.
Several Republican presidential candidates and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan lined up to accuse Obama of “dismissiveness” toward Americans who value the constitutional right to bear arms.
“We all are pained by the recent atrocities in our country, but no change the president is reportedly considering would have prevented them,” Ryan said.
Republicans may try to block funding for parts of the package designed to more aggressively enforce existing laws, including the hiring of 200 additional federal agents at the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Obama is scheduled tomorrow to take part in a primetime town-hall style debate on gun control, to be broadcast on CNN, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
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