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Advocates weigh in on Obama’s gun control plan

Concerning the article on President Barack Obama issuing an executive order for actions to combat gun violence (“Obama Orders Background Checks on All Gun Purchasers”, Jan. 5): Thank goodness we finally have some commonsense proposals.

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He also wanted to calm fears that this wasn’t a gun seizure. Obama is also calling on Congress to invest $500 million to widen access to mental health services.

Kim Stolfer, President of Firearms Owners Against Crime, disagrees with Obama’s new initiative, and criticizes the lack of specifics in the plan, calling it an abuse of separation of powers.

None of these changes are earth-shaking – a Senate bill proposed in 2013 by Sens. “If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin we should make sure that they can’t pull trigger on a gun”, said President Obama.

But the billionaire real-estate mogul has reiterated his frequent position that the answer to mass shootings is having more people with guns in the room, not fewer.

On Tuesday, President Obama announced executive actions aimed at gun control.

In fact, even before I-594 went into effect, Shave said his organization performed background checks. Have a say in our informal poll, and feel free to join the conversation in the comment section. But licensed dealers at gun shows still have to carry out background checks.

He said that most of these unlicensed and exempted small sellers do not keep formal sales records.

An Associated Press review shows that Obama’s executive actions would have had no impact in keeping weapons from suspects in several of the deadliest incidents, including Newtown, Connecticut; San Bernardino, California; and Aurora, Colorado.

“It’s not going to affect the occasional seller who wants to sell a gun from his collection”. In short, private gun sales are unregulated by the government.

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Obama is directing the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security to finance research into gun safety technology and within 90 days produce an outline of how to “expedite the real world deployment of such technology”. Glenn Smith, a professor of constitution law at California Western School of Law, said Wednesday on KPBS Midday Edition. One likely option for opponents is to challenge Obama’s authority to define what it means to be “engaged in the business” of selling guns, since that definition isn’t laid out in the law.

Is there a link between mental illness and gun violence?