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0 to Offer Most Aggressive Gun-Control in Generations
President Obama on Wednesday will formally announce the most aggressive and expansive national gun-control agenda in generations as he presses Congress to mandate background checks for all firearms buyers and prohibit assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips. The announcement will set off a fierce confrontation with Congress over an issue that has riven American society for decades. Obama's far-reaching firearms agenda has at best tepid support from his party leaders and puts him at loggerheads with Democratic centrists.
I heard he's gonna get the children on his side. "Kids - ask your Mommie why she thinks people should have guns to hurt you."
In the weeks ahead, he will attempt to rally popular support to bend the will of lawmakers to vote for what he considers the ideal, not merely the possible.
The same way he always works - my way or the highway.
"Yes, we can reduce gun violence, but it's something we have to do together," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday. "It's something that cannot be done by a president alone. It can't be done by a single community alone or a mayor or a governor or by Congress alone. We all have to work together."
But it can't be done by the President alone, you say? Does your boss know you're saying his poweers are limited and finite?
And if we don't go along with him he'll definitely do it alone...
In addition to background checks and restrictions on military-style guns and ammunition magazines, Obama is expected to propose mental health and school safety initiatives such as more federal funding for police officers in schools, according to lawmakers and interest group leaders whom White House officials briefed on the plans.
Good thing we have plenty of money in the budget. Oh, wait...
I thought armed guards in schools wouldn't solve the problem. I think the police unions smelled a moonlighting opportunity for their members and put Champ onto it...
Bruce Reed, Vice President Biden's chief of staff, told liberal activists late Tuesday that Obama's package would also include a federal gun trafficking measure to stop straw-man purchases and crack down on trafficking rings after a number of mayors raised the issue, said a person familiar with the plan.
Maybe the NRA can get some traction on "Fast and Furious" gun-running.
Straw-man purchases are okay when it's the ATF that's the straw-man...
Obama also is expected to present up to 19 executive actions that his administration will take, the lawmakers and advocates said. These steps include enhanced federal scientific research on gun violence and a modernized federal database system to track guns, criminals and the mentally ill.
See, if we'd had that, Fast & Furious would've worked out just fine.
Most of these actions are relatively narrow in scope, however, and experts have said that without accompanying legislation they will do little to curb gun violence, at least in the near term.
So ... 19 feel-good directives followed by feel-good removal of rights.
Asked about the constraints on Obama's executive powers, Carney said, "It is a simple fact that there are limits on what can be done within existing law."
No, no! That's OTHER presidents! Not the ONE President!
After Biden led a month-long task force, Obama decided to push an expansive agenda that in many ways represents his liberal base's wish list rather than proposals that may be more politically viable to a divided Congress.
I think he planned on that the day of the shootings - let no crisis go to waste.
Obama's proposals amount to the most comprehensive federal regulations of the firearms industry since 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson acted in the aftermath of high-profile assassinations.
Would any of the existing or proposed laws have prevented Lee Harvey Oswald from acquiring firearms?
Already, there are warning signs about the hurdles Obama's agenda may face on Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said it would be exceedingly difficult to pass an assault-weapons ban, which appears to be the most polarizing of Obama's proposals.
"Let's be realistic," Reid told a Nevada PBS affiliate last week. "In the Senate, we're going to do what we think can get through the House, and I'm not going to go through a bunch of these gyrations just to say we've done something."
Unless el Presidente directs otherwise, of course!
Posted by: Bobby 2013-01-16
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=360216