With his voice at times thick with emotion, he recalled the heroic recent death of a Tennessee teen killed while leaping between three young friends and a spray of bullets. “In Colorado, expanded background checks prevented more than 27,000 illegal purchases since 2012, including more than 100 denials based on prior arrest or conviction of homicide”.
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Ultimately, in no unflinching terms, Obama asked how much longer the nation will continue to be bullied by the all-powerful gun lobby, stuck in a sort of twilight zone of political theater that has made keeping a check on America’s lust for guns, and the violence they bear, virtually impossible.
Obama’s 10-point plan to keep guns from those who shouldn’t have them marked a concession by the president: He’ll leave office without securing the new gun control laws he’s repeatedly and desperately implored Congress to pass.
US President Barack Obama today wept in public as he announced a slew of executive measures to tackle the gun violence that claims thousands of lives in the country each year, amid stiff resistance from Republican- controlled Congress to steps for tightening control on firearms. By bypassing Congress, though, Obama is limited to steps far more modest than what he and likeminded lawmakers had long envisioned. “The folks in this room will not rest until Congress does”.
“Now you have some mental health person, for any reason they want to, enter a name into that system”. “People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than commit violence”. A parent can transfer a family gun to a son or daughter without any paperwork unless state laws require it, and none do in Texas. And the president is not alone in searching for ways to address gun violence that don’t require Congress. Mayors, including St. Petersburg’s Rick Kriseman, are the ones looking for solutions because they are the ones facing the pain and costs of deadly shootings in their communities.
The presidential campaign website for Texas Senator Ted Cruz boasts a warning that “Obama wants your guns”, alongside a mock-up of the president in military garb.
“The president is at minimum subverting the legislative branch, and potentially overturning its will”, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan said in a statement before the White House announcement.
The court said specifically it was not trying to “cast doubt” on regulations prohibiting firearms possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws that forbid guns at “sensitive places such as schools and government buildings” or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Despite polls showing a wide majority of Americans, including gun owners, support background checks for guns sales, the issue remains deeply divided politically. Her best friend, 36-year-old Jitka Vesel, was killed in 2011 by a stalker who had illegally purchased a gun from a seller he met through Armslist.com, an online gun site. Those sellers are also not required to be licensed by the federal government.
Obama’s actions, however, don’t sit well with republican leaders who immediately responded.
Background checks work to prevent violence, Obama said, pointing to two states that have taken opposite approaches.
“Anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks or be subject to criminal prosecutions”.
Millions of guns are sold annually in informal settings outside of gun shops, including many through private sales arranged online.
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The centrepiece of Mr Obama’s plan is an attempt to narrow the loophole that exempts gun sales from background checks if the seller is not a federal registered dealer. “This will put traffickers on notice that they will have to comply with the law”.
