That hasn’t stopped gun lobby supporters from condemning Obama’s actions as unconstitutional, accusing him of political exploitation and labeling the president as an enemy of the Second Amendment.
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“President Obama has no business trampling on our Second Amendment rights”, said U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher, a Crockett County Republican. “Rather than taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens as Obama and [Hillary] Clinton would like to do, we should focus on keeping guns out of the hands of the terrorists who want to kill innocent Americans”, he said.
Barack Obama shed tears as he announced long-awaited gun control measures on Tuesday in the wake of countless mass shootings that have made the United States an worldwide outlier for gun violence.
President Barack Obama wept at a press conference announcing a new executive action on gun control. “You pass a background check, you purchase a firearm”.
“We’ve created a system in which unsafe people are allowed to play by a different set of rules”, he said.
Obama said too many gun sales occur without background checks for buyers, particularly in private sales online and at gun shows. But at gun shows, websites and flea markets, sellers often skirt that requirement by declining to register as licensed dealers.
Wiping at his face as he spoke in the East Room of the White House, Mr Obama outlined new moves that would improve background checks and tighten the enforcement of rules.
Mark Barden, the father of a first-grader killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, introduced the president and vice president Tuesday.
Under the changes, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will issue guidelines meant to narrow exceptions to a system that requires sellers to check with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine whether buyers have criminal records, are charged with crimes or have mental health conditions that would bar them from owning a gun. The executive order bypasses Congress, further feeding sentiments about the administration’s overreach.
But it is important to note that even a few transactions, when combined with other evidence, can be sufficient to establish that a person is engaged in the business, the White House fact sheet said.
For his previous year in office, Obama could hardly take on a more important – and controversial – crusade than America’s epidemic of gun violence.
But a more recent spate of gun-related atrocities, including in San Bernardino, California, have spurred the administration to give the issue another look, as Mr Obama seeks to make good on a policy issue he has pushed time and again but has not advanced – until now.
“We’re going to do more to help those suffering from mental illness get the help that they need”, he said, adding that the government is going to boost gun safety technology.
In response, House Speaker Paul Ryan says no matter what unilateral action Obama takes on gun control, “his word does not trump the Second Amendment”. “I reject that thinking”.
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But having failed in his push for new gun laws three years ago, Obama conceded today that “it won’t happen overnight, it won’t happen during this Congress, it won’t happen during my presidency”.
