At the centerpiece of Obama’s plan is a more sweeping definition of gun dealers that the administration hopes will expand the number of sales subject to background checks.
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He was introduced by Mark Barden, whose son Daniel was killed in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in CT.
But Paul Bastean, owner of Ultimate Defense Firing Range in St. Peters, Missouri, said every time Obama talks about guns, sales go up.
Many Congressional Democrats applauded President Obama, but they don’t control congress. The president can’t get funding for new ATF agents unless he can win over Republican, something that seems unlikely right now. “Until we have the Congress that’s in line with the majority of Americans, there are actions within my legal authority that we can take to help reduce gun violence and save more lives”, he said. Obama says he can. “It won’t happen during this Congress. It won’t happen during my presidency”, he said.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz repeated his promise to repeal all of Obama’s executive actions, including the latest ones on guns.
The only sure way to keep guns out of the hands of evil people is to protect society from those who have demonstrated they are a threat to innocent people.
On Tuesday afternoon, Goddard and other families affected by gun violence took part in a conference call with the White House to go step-by-step through the executive order. The reason it makes sense is that Obama’s gun control proposals serve the same function as his ostentatious tears: They show he cares enough to try, even if the effort is bound to fail.
“But the government has the right to regulate gun sales – no constitutional right is absolute”, Crowe added. They are simply more loyal to gun lobbyists than our children.
That’s the current rule for dealers, but soon all sellers will have to get a license and make those background checks.
Mr Obama said the new guidance is “not a plot to take away everyone’s guns”.
“I don’t see any real positive effects coming from it”, Doar said.
Media captionThe BBC contrasts President Obama’s reactions after mass shootings, with the levels of United States gun ownership during his terms in office. But Obama defiantly rejected that critique, dismissing it as the exhausted trope of gun lobbyists who question “why bother trying?”
“I think that he is absolutely not overstepping his bounds”, said state Rep. Ramon Romero, D-Fort Worth. “We maybe can’t save everybody, but we could save some”. “This time it’s a combination of personal protection and gun control”.
Robert Rael, a federally licensed gun dealer for over 25 years who is a regular at Eddy County gun shows, said the changes in gun laws are superficial at best. The White House asserted confidence Obama was acting legally, and said Justice Department and White House lawyers had worked diligently to ensure the steps were watertight.
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While much of the technology the president described has already been developed at least in concept – including fingerprint readers on gun lock boxes, Global Positioning System chips and Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in gun frames capable of tracking a weapon’s location and how it’s used – gun rights advocates claim such technology will inevitably slow a gun owners’ ability to access their weapons in emergencies.
