Obama moved to tears on gun violence – Measures unveiled to tighten control of firearms

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WASHINGTON, Jan, (Agencies): President Barack Obama unveiled an array of measures on Tuesday tightening control and enforcement of firearms in the US, using his presidential powers in the absence of legal changes he implored Congress to pass. Obama accused the gun lobby of taking Congress hostage, but said “they cannot hold America hostage.”

He insisted it was possible to uphold the Second Amendment while doing something to tackle the frequency of mass shootings in the US that he said had become “the new normal.” The Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right of citizens to own firearms. Obama wiped tears from his cheeks as he spoke emotionally about the victims of gun violence. “This is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns,” Obama said. “You pass a background check, you purchase a firearm. The problem is some gun sellers have been operating under a different set of rules.”

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. Under current law, only federally licensed gun dealers must conduct background checks on buyers. But at gun shows, websites and flea markets, sellers often skirt that requirement by declining to register as licensed dealers. So new federal guidance from the Obama administration clarified that it applies to anyone “in the business” of selling firearms.

The White House also put sellers on notice that the administration planned to strengthen enforcement — including deploying 230 new examiners the FBI will hire to process background checks

Lives
To lend a personal face to the issue, the White House assembled a crosssection of Americans whose lives were altered by the nation’s most searing recent gun tragedies, including former Rep Gabrielle Giffords and relatives of victims from shootings at Charleston, South Carolina, and Virginia Tech. Mark Barden, whose son was shot to death along with 19 other children at a Connecticut elementary school in 2012, introduced the president with a declaration that “we are better than this.” Obama invoked the memory of Martin Luther King Tuesday as he urged Americans to wake up to the need to tackle gun violence. “We do have to feel a sense of urgency about it. In Dr. King’s words, we need to feel the fierce urgency of now, because people are dying,” Obama said as he outlined a raft of executive measures on gun control. “And the constant excuses for inaction no longer do.”

Meanwhile, the leader of the US House of Representatives says no matter what unilateral action President Barack Obama takes on gun control, “his word does not trump” the US constitutional right to bear arms. Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, says in a statement that the president’s steps to expand background checks to cover more firearms are certain to be challenged in the courts. Ryan also is stressing that whatever the president does can be overturned if a Republican is elected president in November. Ryan said Obama has never respected the right to safe and legal gun ownership that the country has valued since its inception. He says Obama “knows full well that the law already says that people who make their living selling firearms must be licensed, regardless of venue. Still, rather than focus on criminals and terrorists, he goes after the most lawabiding of citizens.”

Intimidation
Ryan said Obama’s words and actions “amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty.” In related Story, President Barack Obama’s new gun-control initiative has pushed the polarizing issue to the forefront of the 2016 presidential campaign, less than a month before the primary contests begin. While Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided on the issue, both parties see Obama’s actions as an opportunity to generate enthusiasm among primary voters, who tend to be ideologically hardcore. The months-long, state-by-state primary contests to choose the Democratic and Republican nominees begin Feb 1 with the Iowa caucuses. Republican contenders, including billionaire Donald Trump, and Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, promise that if they get elected, they’ll swiftly repeal Obama’s actions, which include steps to expand background checks for gun purchases.

On the Democratic side, front-runner Hillary Clinton has unveiled her own proposals for gun-control executive actions and she enthusiastically endorsed Obama’s measures. Obama’s gun actions are a central topic as candidates crisscross Iowa, New Hampshire and other early voting states. But in the November general election, the gun debate will become a blurrier political proposition. Public opinion polls show Americans overwhelmingly support expanding background checks for gun purchases, but are more divided on the broader question of stricter gun laws.

The gun-control advocacy movement has gained wealthy backers, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but the National Rifle Association, which advocates gun owners’ rights, remains one of the most dominant forces in American politics. “It’s an issue that both (sides) are really going to want to talk about for the next couple of months, but I don’t know how much they’re going to want to talk about it in the fall,” Matthew Dowd, a former political adviser to President George W. Bush, said of the eventual presidential nominees.

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