Obama details executive action on gun restrictions

The Washington Post
January 4, 2016
By David Nakamura and Juliet Eilperin

The Obama administration on Monday unveiled a series of new executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence and making some political headway on one of the most frustrating policy areas of President Obama’s tenure.

The package, which Obama plans to announce Tuesday, includes 10 separate provisions, White House officials said. One key provision would require more gun sellers — especially those who do business on the Internet and at gun shows — to be licensed and would force them to conduct background checks on potential buyers. Obama would devote $500 million more in federal funds to treating mental illness — a move that could require congressional approval — and require that firearms lost in transit between a manufacturer and a seller be reported to federal authorities.

At the president’s direction, the FBI will begin hiring more than 230 additional examiners and other personnel to help process new background checks 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Also, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has established a new investigation center to keep track of illegal gun trafficking online and will devote $4 million and additional personnel to enhance the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.

“The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage, but they can’t hold America hostage. We can’t accept this carnage in our communities,” Obama said in a Twitter message Monday evening, referring to the National Rifle Association.

The president is scheduled to talk about his new policies in the East Room on Tuesday, and two days later he will participate in a town hall at George Mason University that will be televised on CNN.

Even before Obama’s official announcement, however, Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail blasted the actions, and some gun rights advocates threatened to challenge them in court.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) issued a statement Monday saying that even without knowing the plan’s details, he thinks “the president is at minimum subverting the legislative branch, and potentially overturning its will. . . . This is a dangerous level of executive overreach, and the country will not stand for it.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said Monday that he and his colleagues would “be taking a deep look at the president’s proposals, with an eye toward ensuring that the Second Amendment is preserved.”

Although modest compared with any legislation that Congress could adopt, Obama’s executive actions will affect areas such as how the federal government might leverage its purchasing power to advance “safe gun” technology as well as what information federal and local law enforcement will share on individuals who are illegally trying to purchase weapons.

The president, who went over the initiatives in the Oval Office on Monday with administration officials including Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and FBI Director James B. Comey, said inaction by Congress in the wake of several high-profile mass shootings and other gun-related violence justified his decision.

“And although it is my strong belief that for us to get our complete arm around the problem Congress needs to act, what I asked my team to do is to see what more we could do to strengthen our enforcement” to curb illegal gun sales, Obama said in brief remarks to reporters after the meeting. “And the good news is, is that these are not only recommendations that are well within my legal authority and the executive branch, but they’re also ones that the overwhelming majority of the American people, including gun owners, support and believe in.”

One of the main provisions is new federal guidance requiring some occasional gun sellers to get licenses from ATF and conduct background checks on potential buyers. Rather than set a single threshold for what triggers this licensing requirement, it will be based on a mix of business activities such as whether the seller processes credit cards, rents tables at gun shows and has formal business cards.

A recent survey of more than 2,000 gun owners by Harvard University researchers found that of those who purchased their most recent firearm, about a third did not undergo a background check.

In a conference call with reporters, Lynch said the administration could not estimate how many more people would be affected by the new licensing provisions. She said gun sales are increasingly moving online and into largely unregulated areas of the “dark Web” where illicit activities take place in hidden transactions.

“The industry is shifting and growing,” she said. “If it does stop one act of violence, this will be worth it.”

Other aspects of the president’s plan aim to bolster the FBI’s background-check system, including a push by the U.S. Digital Service to modernize its processing operations and a proposal to add 200 new ATF agents and investigators to bolster enforcement.

Obama will instruct federal agencies, which collectively represent the nation’s largest firearms purchaser, to “explore potential ways” to promote technology that would prevent the accidental discharge or unauthorized use of a gun, according to White House officials.

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