AP-Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun advocacy group Everytown is putting pressure on President Obama to use his pen to implement new gun control measures through executive action.
In an effort to exploit the murders at Umpqua Community College in Oregon last week, Everytown has issued a report with actions they claim will “save lives” and “keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.”
“This report answers the President’s call, and offers five life-saving measures that the Administration could advance — today — to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people,” the Everytown website states. “These five critical — and simple — steps would: keep dangerous people with guns out of our schools; crack down on gun trafficking and curb the sale of guns without background checks; ensure that law enforcement identifies and prosecutes the most dangerous criminals who try to illegally obtain guns; help states to enforce their own background check laws; and ensure that all convicted domestic abusers are prohibited from possessing guns. A comprehensive list of these and other recommended executive actions is set forth in the appendix to this report.”
The executive action recommendations:
1. Issue guidance to ensure that dangerous people are not permitted to carry guns within 1,000 feet of a school;
2. Issue a regulation clarifying that high-volume gun sellers are “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms and must obtain dealer licenses and comply with applicable laws, including background checks on all gun sales;
3. Instruct federal law enforcement to identify and arrest dangerous criminals who try to buy illegal guns, and to notify and work with state and local authorities when these illegal purchases are attempted;
4. Assist states in enforcing their existing background check laws by publishing aggregate background check denial data for guns sold by unlicensed sellers; and
5. Protect victims of domestic abuse by clarifying that convicted abusers are prohibited from having guns regardless of marital status.
I should note:
1) The vast majority of schools are already “gun free zones” by law with the goal of banning “dangerous people with guns out of schools.”
2) It is already illegal to operate as a business selling firearms with the intent of making a profit without an FFL.
3) The U.S. already has laws that allow law enforcement to identify and prosecute dangerous criminals who try to illegal buy guns but under President Obama, prosecution of these crimes and enforcement of these laws are down significantly.
4) Oregon in particular has a universal background check system which didn’t stop the murders last week.
5) Convicted domestic abusers are already banned from purchasing firearms.
As Everytown notes, President Obama lamented the lack of action from Congress to implement more gun control during remarks last week and said he can’t change current laws by himself. Everytown seems to think he can and that he should.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said over the weekend she would use executive action to implement more gun control should she win the race for the White House in 2016.
You are correct in that a lot of these restrictions are already in place. What it is, is a problem of enforcement, and of paying attention, which we have to start doing.
“Oregon in particular has a universal background check system which didn’t stop the murders last week.”
Because, 1) the army tossed the young man, rather than make an attempt to deal with him, and 2) was not forthcoming about, shall we suppose, psychological issues making him unsuitable for the armed … I repeat, ARMED, services.
Come on … this could have been prevented. We just don’t exert ourselves.
Libby the Army tossing him has nothing to do with the Oregon background check not working. It’s a separate issue.
You have no idea what the Army may or may not have done to “deal with him” before “tossing him”.
According to the WSJ he was discharged for attempted suicide. That’s not a red flag for “will go out and slaughter students and teachers,” no matter how you’d like to think so. The Army is not a mental health clinic. But it’s interesting that you would fault them, or the guns, rather than the guy himself.
NannyMayor Bloomingidiotberg’s group is a few cards short of a full deck. Any executive action would immediately be challenged in court, and many State governors would tell the Feds to pound sand.
And if da prez is so focused on controlling guns, why has there been no mention during the last 6+ years of his pounding the pulpit on the continuing shootings in his home town of Chicago, hmmmmmm??????
We can’t say it enough. The silence is deafening.
Hey, has anyone else seen the NRA ad featuring a sweet elderly black woman who makes the case for gun rights from the perspective of es in a dangerous building in a dangerous city? She is fantastic.
J. Soden: “And if da prez is so focused on controlling guns, why has there been no mention during the last 6+ years of his pounding the pulpit on the continuing shootings in his home town of Chicago, hmmmmmm??????”
Obama has mentioned this several times. Your sources don’t report it.
And the numbers of victims in Chicago just keep getting larger and larger. My question stands.
J.S., good point!
No, your question doesn’t stand, because your question was “why has there been no mention during the last 6+ years of his pounding the pulpit on the continuing shootings in his home town of Chicago, hmmmmmm??????” Your question was based on a faulty premise. You might have a new question about why violence in Chicago has gone up, but that’s a different question.
Not all high volume dealers are licensed Tina there is a craigslist ect underground biz going on.
The suggestions are to cover loopholes for some states. So I really do not see any big deal here. What is the big deal?
I am still waiting for Obma to take all guns away as we had to listen to for years!
To protect our right to bear arms we need to get things under control. There are people who hate guns and want them gone. It would not be an issue if propaganda was not fueling the crazies. We now are starting to see private citizens shoot up parking lots over shoplifting? A cop would not even do that!
I want to protect gun rights. A gun is a tool not something to wave around. Walking through grocery stores with AR15’s is stupid.
By the way there were armed students there.
Dewey, Craigslist won’t allow firearms…period. There is no underground craigslist unless you are talking about the dark net and that is for anything, drugs, guns poison, murder for hire, etc. That kind of crap has always been around by one name or another, only now its digitized.
Jack all of the underground buying and selling Dewey is talking about would also be illegal, right?
Closing the loop hole would do NOTHING to stop criminals from acquiring guns in this already illegal manner.
Tina…absolutely, it’s all black market stuff.
Dewey I am appalled at how you think, nobody is advocating carry an AR15 into the grocery store, but if I am an off duty cop and I attend college on the side, it would be nice to be legally allowed to carry my concealed weapon onto the campus. I’m the same guy who would carry it on campus exposed and in uniform, so why not allow me to carry it out of uniform? And what if I was a detective who doesn’t wear a uniform, now whats the difference? Same guy…same gun…but different rules! STUPID.
The problem is this knee jerk reaction by silly liberal females and males who never touched a gun because Mommy and Daddy said guns were bad. So now that they are big boys and girls they have this phobia about guns. They (school officials) impose stupid “Gun Free Zones” without thinking it through so that cop noted above can’t carry a weapon and protect people if something should happen. They are such dunces for educated people.
I have not heard one thing out of Obama (or any of the America haters) that would do one helpful thing to protect the public from crazy people or terrorists that might be armed. It’s all focused on taking away stuff from honest, law abiding people.
Here, here!!!
Ref PS: We have to listen a bit more closely, Obama might be in Chicago, (more killings there then in Roseburg) and talking about it with pen in hand…
I heard he borrowed the ‘Pope Mobile’ for the Chicago visit.
Caution, this is another liberal ‘ubs’ 🙂
“Ref PS: We have to listen a bit more closely, Obama might be in Chicago, (more killings there then in Roseburg) and talking about it with pen in hand…”
Wait, you’re saying there are more killings in a major urban center with a population of 27,000,000 than in a one airport town with a population of 22,000?
Thanks Obama!
“Instruct federal law enforcement to identify and arrest dangerous criminals who try to buy illegal guns, and to notify and work with state and local authorities when these illegal purchases are attempted” …….. including sanctuary cities?
“Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said over the weekend she would use executive action to implement more gun control” …. You might wonder if she got this idea that came in a email off her server? or was she just referring to reducing protective military personnel to our Ambassadors in zones like Benghazi.
Like Jack points out this is clearly nothing more than Liberal spew taking advantage of a tragedy, all without resolve.
After all its election year coming up, politicians have to appear like their on top of things……sigh!
“You might wonder if she got this idea that came in a email off her server? or was she just referring to reducing protective military personnel to our Ambassadors in zones like Benghazi. ”
Wickedly funny, Harold…thanks for the laugh.
“Like Jack points out this is clearly nothing more than Liberal spew taking advantage of a tragedy, all without resolve.”
Largely because you callous and obstructionist so-and-so’s prevent it.
Now, how about that McCarthy guy! “Screw You!”, says he. “I don’t need this shit.”
I love it! And, I say that if the House is going two refuse to get it’s whiny butt in gear and do any work til 2017 … we should send them home til then.
Libby: “…callous and obstructionist…”
What utter horse hockey!
How many gun laws are there on the books? Oh yeah, we don’t know, there are too many to count. Recognizing the futility in writing another gun law is not obstructionist, it is sensible and reasonable.
There is also nothing callous in admitting the reality…you will never be able to prevent these events no matter how many laws you write; life happens. It is perhaps more callous to offer people the false hope that another law will make their children safe.
People have been trained and socialized to general goodness; we are not inherently good. We are in fact, a mixed bag of good and evil. Which is why “family values” are important, no matter how much they get in the way of Bill Clinton’s decadent and abusive lifestyle or the insane temptations that lure young men into committing acts of extreme violence.
There are many gun laws, but they’re not being enforced. Sometimes new laws are necessary to enforcement. For example, if there were no background check laws at all, then the law that felons could not purchase firearms would be impossible to enforce–sellers would have no idea who was a felon and no obligation to find out. In such a situation, saying “it’s already against the law for felons to buy a gun!” would be extremely unhelpful.
Let’s take it a step further. As you’ve said, “murder is already illegal”–the implication being we don’t need any other gun laws but that one. OK, so let’s take that logic and repeal the law that makes it illegal for felons to buy guns. Let’s also allow AK-47s anywhere–playgrounds, the Capitol building, everywhere. After all, murder is already illegal, so why do we need any other laws but that one?
Republicans say we should simply enforce our existing laws, but they’ve worked hard to cripple the ATF, the agency responsible for enforcement. Is it any coincidence that this is the exact agency that found rampant abuse of the gun show loophole?
Universal background checks would help our government enforce existing laws against felons purchasing guns, with little cost to law abiding gun owners. We already have this in California, and the prophecies of confiscation haven’t come true here. We also have less gun violence than neighboring Arizona, which has no such law. The benefits clearly outweigh the costs.
Chris your logical exercise is useless to our conversations. No one has suggested eliminating the types of laws you cited.
“Republicans say we should simply enforce our existing laws…”
NewsMax:
“…but they’ve (Republicans) worked hard to cripple the ATF…”
Worked hard to cripple the ATF? Or to expose lax practices, abuses and corruption?
This site has a list of complaints that seem to come from bureau insiders.
National Review features a story about the way Catherine Englebrecht was targeted and abused by the IRS, FBI, ATF, and OSHE.
CBS reported about documents that showed “ATF used ‘Fast and Furious’ to make the case for gun regulations”
The Gibson Guitar raid is another example of abuse.
My point is simply that laws don’t stop people from committing crimes and many of the laws we already have are either not enforced or abused by our government. The laws we have are sufficient:
Go here for a listing of federal gun laws.
Wikipedia has information on gun laws in individual states
Go here for laws pertaining to online gun purchases.
Go here to read about rules and gun laws at gun shows.
Go here for information on California gun laws. More here
You’d have to be a bit insane to think we don’t have enough gun laws on the books. You’d have to be a bit irrational to think these laws are capable of stopping crazy people from getting guns and using them.
The majority of “gun violence” occurs where Democrats are in control. Is anything stopping the states where these cities exist from doing more? Oh wait…they already have!
The issue is political…they don’t give a da*n about enforcing laws, they care about votes and campaign money, and power.
Tina: “Chris your logical exercise is useless to our conversations. No one has suggested eliminating the types of laws you cited.”
Except that’s exactly what you suggested when you wrote:
“We have laws against committing murder. If that isn’t stopping murders from happening why do you think more gun laws would?”
This argument clearly suggests that laws against committing murder are enough, and that no other gun laws are necessary. That’s the unspoken premise of your above argument.
I’m well aware that you’re not in favor of eliminating all gun laws. That’s precisely why I brought those hypotheticals up; to show you that you’re making bad arguments which rely on premises which you don’t actually believe.
I think it’s important to make one’s arguments as clear as possible; sloppy writing indicates sloppy thinking.
“The majority of “gun violence” occurs where Democrats are in control.”
Correlation is not causation. Poor minorities and city-dwellers tend toward voting Democrat; they’re also more likely to live in high-crime areas. It’s unlikely that if they changed their voting patterns, Republican leadership would be enough to bring down the crime rates in those areas.
If Obumble/$hrilLIARy want to make a good start for their gun control platform, they can begin by removing armed guards from ALL politicians . . . . . .