Obama to roll out executive measures on guns

Source: The White House

President Barack Obama is preparing to combat what he called “the scourge of gun violence in this country” with new executive actions tightening the rules for firearms sales causing a 2016 political stir and a likely sales boost to gun dealers in Georgia and elsewhere.

“What I asked my team to do is to see what we could do to strengthen enforcement and prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands,” Obama said Monday. “To make sure that criminals, people who are mentally unstable, those who could pose a danger to themselves or others, are less likely to get a gun.”

Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser, told reporters Monday evening that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will increase efforts to target those who sell guns for profit but refuse to register as dealers, improve the national reporting protocol for gun sales and background checks, and hire hundreds of new analysts and ATF agents to enforce existing laws.

Republicans and pro-gun advocates quickly denounced a move to limit the guns themselves rather than attacking common motivations of shooters — terrorism or mental illness. Democrats and gun control activists, meanwhile, praised the actions as potential lifesavers.

‘It’s already the law’

Kellie Weeks of Gainesville, the owner of the Georgia Gun Store, said what Obama is proposing is already the law. Current law defines a dealer as anyone spending time and effort to buy and sell guns on a regular basis, Weeks said.

“You’re engaged in the business of dealing in guns if you’re spending time and money and trying to make a profit,” she said. “It’s already the law. That is already in place. You can’t go around buying and selling guns.”

Regardless, Weeks said Obama has been a boon for her business and his executive actions will only help sales.

“It just keeps going up every year,” she said. “We’d sold about 4,000 guns in 2012. Last year, it’s about 6,800 in 2014, and then now we sold just over 8,000 for 2015. Every time he speaks, new people come in and buy guns.”

U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Cassville Republican, predicted a stiff response from congressional Republicans, such as a lawsuit attacking the administration for usurping Congress’ power of the purse.

“This is an extremely important matter when you’re talking about one of the natural rights, one of the guaranteed rights for every American citizen,” Loudermilk said.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Republicans should applaud the president’s measures as they have called on the government to enforce existing gun laws.

“They should surely support additional resources being directed to enforce existing law,” he said on a conference call with reporters.

U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Lithonia Democrat, backed the president’s efforts.

“Nearly 90 percent of Americans agree that we need to close these loopholes,” Johnson said in a prepared statement. “We can protect citizens’ Second Amendment rights while working to prevent these weapons from getting into the wrong hands.”

Lucia McBath of Marietta, who became a gun control activist after her 17-year-old son, Jordan, was murdered in 2012, also supported the president’s actions.

“It’s been very disheartening to see that our legislators have been more beholden to the gun lobby than they have to their constituents in their communities,” McBath said. “If President Obama has to create this executive order and these actions to keep us safe, then I applaud him.”

Defining gun dealers

But Weeks, the gun dealer, said the idea of a “gun show loophole” is a misnomer. Any dealer at a gun show “has to do the same thing they do at their store,” she said. “They have to do background checks. We have to keep account for every gun we sell at a gun show.”

There are sales that happen at gun shows between two private individuals, but those happen “every day, everywhere.” But those sales aren’t between “dealers,” Weeks said.

Jarrett said the ATF will make clear “whether you ‘re engaged in the business depends on the facts and circumstances.”

Those circumstances, she said, could include whether the individual represents themselves as a dealer, has business cards or takes credit card payments.

The ATF is also finalizing a new rule to require background checks for those who buy “some of the most dangerous weapons” through a trust, corporation “or other legal entity,” the White House said. Those weapons include machine guns and sawed-off shotguns.

The Obama administration will also propose a $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care while two agencies — the Social Security Administration and Department of Health and Human Services — will develop new rules to improve mental health reporting and to prevent firearms from passing down to beneficiaries who are prohibited from owning a gun.

Big issue at state level

As Georgia prepares for its legislative session, guns are on the agenda, too.

Democratic lawmakers have made long-shot proposals to require anyone who wants a concealed weapons permit to take state-sponsored safety training and to bar anyone getting a divorce from buying a gun without the permission of a judge.

The former, House Bill 709, sponsored by state Rep. Keisha Waites, D-Atlanta, drew at least grudging interest from Republican lawmakers but is still unlikely to advance.

The latter, Senate Bill 250, by state Sen. Michael Rhett, D-Marietta, appears to be part of a larger national effort to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. The New York Times reported that nine states passed similar laws in 2015, all part of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to strengthen gun control laws in the states.

Gun rights advocates, meanwhile, will most likely focus support on House Bill 544, sponsored by state Rep. Heath Clark, R-Warner Robins, which would allow guns anywhere on the campuses of the state’s public colleges and universities. The bill was introduced in 2015 but has yet to receive a committee hearing. Advocates have for years tried to legalize campus carry, but the powerful University System of Georgia has managed each year to beat it back.

Parties appeal to their bases

In Washington, Congress has repeatedly denied any attempts to impose additional background checks or otherwise tighten gun laws during the Obama presidency.

So as he has done on immigration, Obama is turning to executive actions. Monday’s initiatives were the result of a review with top leaders at the Department of Justice inspired by a school shooting in October in Roseburg, Ore., that killed 10, including the shooter.

Obama made his remarks in the Oval Office before a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates, the former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, among others.

He will stage a formal East Room event Tuesday, followed by a town hall meeting with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday. It’s the first big political salvo of 2016, and both parties’ candidates to succeed Obama played to their bases with four weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses.

Democrat Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state in the Obama administration, said the president’s actions mirror her call to go “as far as possible” with executive actions on background checks. She added that any Republican president would “delight” in reversing such an order.

One Republican presidential hopeful, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, called Obama a "petulant child" who "acts like a king" when Congress does not do his bidding.

A lawsuit is likely from Congress or elsewhere. Courts have so far held up Obama's plan to allow 5 million immigrants here illegally to remain and work — also hatched as a response to congressional inaction.