People applause for former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords as she arrives in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, to hear President Barack Obama speak about steps his administration is taking to reduce gun violence.
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“There’s more organization, there’s more capacity, there’s more money”, said Kristin Goss, a public policy professor at Duke University who has studied gun-control advocacy groups. Someone illegally engaged in gun selling can put hundreds of firearms in illegal markets in the USA in cities like Chicago and New York City, he said, with “devastating consequences” as a result.
Area representatives in Congress reacted along party lines to President Barack Obama’s executive orders expanding background checks.
Even before the White House unveiled the gun control measures, Republicans were criticizing the president for what they said was an abuse of authority. “But even so, millions of guns will be sold online without background checks unless Congress or states pass universal background checks, as 18 states have done on their own”.
It is axiomatic that congressional Republicans will oppose anything smacking of “gun control”, which may as well be read as “Your mama”. But it’s unclear whether the steps will significantly curb unregulated gun sales.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, called the proposals a “dangerous level of executive overreach” and said the president was “at minimum subverting the legislative branch, and potentially overturning its will”.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the executive actions would have no effect on gun violence, but would infringe on rights of law-abiding gun owners.
Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia said he anxious that the president’s actions could encroach on due process by giving the government the power to deny gun ownership to those it considered mentally incompetent.
Private sales – often carried out in person after Internet advertisements connect sellers and buyers – can be exploited by convicted felons, domestic abusers and others who cannot pass a background check, critics say.
UCLA constitutional law specialist Adam Winkler, the author of “Gunfight: the Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America”, said the actions Obama announced Tuesday fall within the president’s authority. “This should not be allowed under our constitutional framework”.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2015 saw more Americans buying guns than ever before, with background checks surging 10 percent to 23.1 million.
As in other western states, the issue of gun control in the Gem State is particularly contentious.
The measures include clarification of an existing law on background checks and gun dealer registration as well as new investments in mental health and gun safety research. The gun lobby will fight him, but it holds no political sway over him anymore. Yet one of the most critical elements of the whole plan is being dumped into the laps of the individual states.
The President is calling for tighter background checks for all firearm sales, in other words, anyone who sells a firearm will have be registered and conduct background checks. “All of us need to demand governors, and legislators and businesses do their part to make our communities safer”, he said.
“Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well.” he said.
Recent polls show an increase in the number of Americans who support background checks on those seeking to purchase firearms.
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Obama has done what any human president would do, upon watching the slaughter of his country’s civilians in the real world, while Y’all Qaeda and Yokel Haram stockpile guns for the coming episode of The Running Man because they’ve run low on Olanzapine.
