Not letting a crisis go to waste, the POS in the White House is striking while the iron is hot.
Tomorrow, Jan. 15, 2013 — a month and two days after the Sandy Hook school massacre — the POS will formally announce the most aggressive and expansive national gun-control agenda in generations as he presses Congress to mandate background checks for all firearm buyers and prohibit assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.
Philip Rucker reports for the Washington Post, Jan. 15, 2013, that in the weeks ahead, Obama will attempt to rally popular support to bend the will of lawmakers to vote for what he considers the ideal, not merely the possible.
Tomorrow, as he announces his gun control plan, Obama will be surrounded by children invited to attend. The children allegedly had written letters to Obama after last month’s shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which killed 20 first grade children and 6 adults.
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.
Obama also is expected to present up to 19 executive orders, including enhanced federal scientific research on gun violence and a modernized federal database system to track guns, criminals and the mentally ill.
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.
Asked about the constraints on Obama’s executive powers, the POS’s mouthpiece Jay Carney said, “It is a simple fact that there are limits on what can be done within existing law.”
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.
Read the rest of the Washington Post article here.
As you watch the POS make the announcement tomorrow, just remember that he recently signed a bill that provides retired U.S. presidents — which he presumably will be after 2016 — with the Secret Service’s armed protection for life.
H/t FOTM’s Tina and Ken L.
~Eowyn