Is the White House losing the fight for gun control?

[Come and take it.]

After watching his News Conference Obama seemed very sedated about what he plans to do about gun control.

It seems that even a magazine ban may have trouble passing the congress (my own opinion).

He said something about keeping hi-capacity magazines out of the hands of people who should not have them.

That almost seems to suggest that he wants to regulate magazines in some way. Not including an outright ban on high capacity but some form of background check system similiar to the one on firearms themselves.

So basically the thread would be about whether the white houses attack is petering out and also what can be gleaned about his odd comment about magazines.

[BarryLee]

I have no doubt he will propose some pretty substantial gun control initiates and call on Congress to act. Now, it still remains to be seen if the latest version of the US House stays as Pro 2A as they have in the past. I also feel certain that he will pursue whatever controls he can put in place or modify without Congress.

We should not underestimate the impact of the Bully Pulpit and the powers of Mr. Obama’s persuasive skills. This is by no means the time to let up.

[Alabama Shooter]

What is this thread about?

[Silent Bob]

I've noticed this trend across the forums of people believing the White House is already starting to back off gun control. I think we are in for a rude shock, and need to brace ourselves for it. I am expecting a comically dictatorial EO in the coming days, but there will be nothing funny about it.

[mrvco]

The longer this drags on, the better the chance for rational action and/or inaction prevailing.

I get the impression that removing the "Gun Show Loophole", some token regulations on mail-order purchase of ammo and magazines and of course some multi-billion dollar "Council on Gun Violence Interdiction" pork project, all done in such a way that they will pass the House easily, will be enough to declare victory and proclaim the American populace safe... at least for this congressional term.

I'm FAR more concerned about the House remaining pro-2A in 2014.

[Dr Big Bird PhD]

I am less afraid of congress and more of EO

[pturner67]

The White House attack has not weakened.

President Obama said he'd take "executive action" to deal with guns at his press conference today:

"My understanding is the vice president's going to provide a range of steps that we can take to reduce gun violence," said Obama. "Some of them will require legislation, some of them I can accomplish through executive action. And so I will be reviewing those today, and as I said, I will speak in more detail to what we're going to go ahead and propose later in the week. But I'm confident that there are some steps that we can take that don't require legislation and that are within my authority as president, and where you get a step that, has the opportunity to reduce the possibility of gun violence, then i want to go ahead and take it."

[Kimio]

Let's keep this real folks, it's not just "liberals" or "Democrats" there are plenty of conservatives and Republicans that support further gun control. Not trying to get anyone's panties in a wad, just saying, let's keep the party lingo out of this, less it starts to go south of cheese.

Anyway, back on topic, I am under no illusion that Obama will put forth some form of legislation or try to pass an EO that will affect firearms ownership in some shape or form. Most likely I'd say the one thing that has the best chance of passing is some form of limitation on "High capacity magazines".

I do however feel that the emotions are rapidly dwindling, and the anti's as well as Obama are feeling it. Make no mistake though, whatever he and the anti' are cooking up is not going to be pretty. The fact that we may be losing the House in 2014 (I haven't confirmed this yet so I don't know) certainly doesn't bode well for us either. We must stay vigilant and keep pressing our reps to resist, until we see what they are after down in ink, we cannot relax.

It's far too dangerous to become complacent now, even if nothing meaningful does happen this time around, we still have at least three more years of this crap to put up with. This is just the start of a very long and arduous battle and it certainly seems that deck is starting to become stacked against us IMO.

[bbqbob51]

From what I have seen from the President in the last 4 years is he really isn't that passionate about gun control. An example of an anti gun politician is Senator Feinstein, she is nearly a one trick pony in this regard and is constantly introducing bills limiting the 2A. She was practically jumping out of her skin after the horrible tragedy in Connecticut.
What I've seen from Obama is a politician who really doesn't give a rat's ass about gun control. He just doesn't care and I point to the fact that not only did he get a grade of F from the NRA but he also got an F from the Brady Campaign. I think he also believes what Howard Dean taught the Democratic party and that is throwing themselves behind gun control is toxic and will cost them at the polls. I think the slaughter of those children got to him emotionally and has vowed to act in some way and he is certainly hearing from a lot of people and groups to do something about guns so he will propose thing, knowing full well they won't fly. He's passionate about health care and other things but not gun control, he'll propose and then move on.
The thing is there are plenty in his own party that don't want to even touch the gun issue so if we hold our representatives and senators feet to the fire we can limit the damage. Whenever a political party moves too far to the left or the right they will eventually lose ground in the long run.

[SauerGrapes]

Rest assured, Obama will introduce sweeping gun legislation for the congress to pass. Even if it goes nowhere, he can blame the republicans for not getting it past.
He will enact whatever powers he can under the excecutive order. Don't believe for one minute, he will fold on gun control.
He knows it's an uphill battle, but he will do something.

[Ghost1958]

Im not sure he will only be able to blame Republicans. There are a lot of Democrat reps etc that dont support this garbage either. I agree the longer this goes on and the loonier the anti talking heads get with shooting down jets with ARs, and a host of other totally stupid ideas that even folks that arent dyed in the wool gun supporters think are laughable the better off we are.

[Mr. James]

I am expecting a comically dictatorial EO in the coming days, but there will be nothing funny about it.

That's my concern. This president, this wannabe dictator has proven that whenever "we just can't wait" for Congress, whenever it's "not about politics," he'll unload the bunker buster of EOs.

Remember, this isn't Democrat/Republican. This is about control and tyranny. And they've got the bit in their teeth. Obama's puppet masters will tell him how far he can hgo.

[Tom Servo]

Rest assured, Obama will introduce sweeping gun legislation for the congress to pass. Even if it goes nowhere, he can blame the republicans for not getting it past.

He doesn't appear to be too confident in the legislature as of today.

Harry Reid appears to think a renewed AWB is a dead letter, and Joe Manchin agrees.

That leaves Dianne Feinstein standing on her little hill, screaming "I tried to save the children, but the evil NRA/gun lobby/politicians wouldn't help!"

Just like every other year she's tried her shenanigans.

[Mr. James]

No, he won't get much at all from Congress. Which this president views as superfluous.

I'm no panic monger; I believe both houses of the Congress will stand firm. But I've never seen a president more willing to simply say, "screw them, I'm doing what I want."

Of course, the fatuous, exceedingly ridiculous Joe will nod his head and say, "what am I supposed to propose, boss?" Then the whole panoply of truly evil crap will be thrown on the table.

By the way, how are you boys in New York doing? Seven rounds? Really? I ponder how manufacturers will accommodate seven-round, ten-round, and standard-capacity magazines. Like publik skewel textbooks, will they dumb it down to the lowest level?

[Edward429451]

Yeah, it don't sound like anything will pass Congress to me. Obama can't be re-elected but the other guys want to be. I think the danger is if another high profile shooting occurs, then they'll make an EO that will be very bad for us.

[tet4]

I think this is just the precursor to the 2014 elections. This will set the stage and they will wait until after the next cycle to really go for it. He's going to make getting the house a priority this cycle with immigration and other reforms.

[coachteet]

Let's stay grounded on the whole EO issue. Obama didn't invent EO's. Anything he can do with an EO is going to be pretty minimal.

[Ignition Override]

About two weeks ago "The Wall Street Journal" ago had an article in which the writer described the confusion among the anti-gunners about which strategy to use.

Today's "Wall Street" stated that Harry Reid has mixed feelings, and as in at least one previous article, might not allow any 'shaky' gun control vote to get onto the floor of the Senate.

Reid (and many other Senators?) only want to vote on a gun issue which has a really good chance of passing, unless my impression is mistaken.
Some Dem. Senators from rural areas such as WV are up for re-election in 2014. The campaign season is never very far away.

Maybe Tom Servo was refering to some of this.

It might just be my impression that much of this gun talk is meant partly to be a distraction from the upcoming nasty Congressional fight about both the debt ceiling and our monstrous federal deficit.
What we saw in December might be just a prelude to this next, very bitter phase.

This gun stuff keeps the public from thinking about it so much.
Is Obama saving most of his remaining personal "political capital" for these even uglier defict talks, instead of frittering it away on guns?
Can this partly explain why he appeared to put Biden in charge of gun control?

[Hal]

Is the White House losing the fight for gun control?

Absolutly not.

Anything they get is a victory & you can be 100% sure they'll come away with something.

Let's stay grounded on the whole EO issue. Obama didn't invent EO's. Anything he can do with an EO is going to be pretty minimal

Minimal or not - at the end of the day, when all is said and done, it's more than they had that morning...

[Technosavant]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

That leaves Dianne Feinstein standing on her little hill, screaming "I tried to save the children, but the evil NRA/gun lobby/politicians wouldn't help!"

Just like every other year she's tried her shenanigans.

Yeah, they have a built in bad guy to blame for when they get astonishingly little to nothing- US. They'll blame the NRA, gun companies, gun nuts, etc. And we'll take it, because we know the truth- that the millions of gun owners out there stood up, shouted "NO" and legislators listened for a change.

So when the extremist anti gun folks go back home, they can blame us and cluck their tongues. Those from more moderate places who claimed they might support a ban hope that we forget what they said come the next election and breathe a sigh of relief that they never had to cast a vote that would haunt them.

I'll take that as a victory 10 times out of 10.

[pturner67]

For those who think things aren't going to move forward...announced today:

The White House has identified 19 executive actions for President Barack Obama to move unilaterally on gun control, Vice President Joe Biden told a group of House Democrats on Monday, the administration’s first definitive statements.
Later this week, Obama will formally announce his proposals to reduce gun violence, which are expected to include renewal of the assault weapons ban, universal background checks and prohibition of high-capacity magazine clips. But Biden, who has been leading Obama’s task force on the response, spent two hours briefing a small group of sympathetic House Democrats on the road ahead in the latest White House outreach to invested groups.

The focus on executive orders is the result of the White House and other Democrats acknowledging the political difficulty of enacting any new gun legislation.

The executive actions could include giving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authority to conduct national research on guns, more aggressive enforcement of existing gun laws and pushing for wider sharing of existing gun databases among federal and state agencies, members of Congress in the meeting said.

[zukiphile]

Is the White House losing the fight for gun control?

Not yet.

[Strafer Gott]

I think the Whitehouse is waiting to see how bad it goes on Cuomo. Let's try to make it at least a little scary. If I lived there I'd be looking to start a recall vote this afternoon yet. New York Isn't just a city. There's a state, some call it upstate New York. It's fun to hit, until someone hits back. I assure you, none of those politicians seek martyrdom for this cause. It's no fun winning, if they make you sitdown and shut up.

[Webleymkv]

OK, there are a few things that need to be remembered about American politics when considering the issue. This may be mildly political and for that I apologize, but I think it's necessary to adequately explain the situation. Roughly 40% of people will always vote Democrat and roughly 40% will always vote Republican, it's the 20% in between that usually decides an election. In the case of the Democrat party, a good portion of their 40% base supports gun control, but the issue is much less popular amongst the 20% of "swing voters". This puts them in a somewhat precarious position because angering the swing voters will ensure losses in future elections, but they still need to motivate their base to get out and vote as well.

So, the question for the Democrat party is how to appease the base without stepping on the toes of everyone else. President Obama's base has not been very happy with him over gun control (he recieved an F rating from the Brady Campaign over the lack of gun control in his first term) and thus he runs the risk of damaging the party if he does nothing over Sandy Hook. On the other hand, gun control remains a poison issues outside of the Democrat base and thus anything too extensive on that front would also be damaging to the party.

Because of this, what the President needs to do in order to placate his base without angering the swing voters is to take symbolic action on gun control without forcing Democratic members of Congress to vote on it one way or the other. In essence, the President can "take the fall" on gun control because he cannot be re-elected again and thus is immune to the ire of swing voters.

Now, a sweeping executive order could potentially be just as damaging to Congressional Democrats as anti-gun legislation. This is for two reasons: first there would be a fair amount of guilt by association for being in the same party as a gun banner. Second, to do anything really sweeping the President would have to overstep the boundaries of his executive power which would almost certainly provoke a fight with Congressional Republicans. Like gun control legislation, a fight over executive orders would force Congressional Democrats to pick a side and neither position is likely to leave them unscathed.

The wise thing for the President to do, politically, is to issue executive orders that do not overstep his authority nor enact substantial new gun control. Examples of such would be ordering the ATF to more aggressively prosecute people to make straw purchases or false statements on 4473's. This would allow him, and by extension his party, to placate the base by doing something without forcing Congressional Democrats from moderate or conservative districts to take a stance on the issue one way or the other. Likewise, it would allow him to rally the base by blaming Congressional Republicans for preventing him from taking more substantial gun control measures. The wise thing for us to do is to keep pressure on our legislators, particularly Democrats, so that they remain of the opinion that gun control is a poison issue.

[dlb435]

I think they will get something. About 60% of the population wants to see some action.
I agree with Obama "It should be as easy to get mental health care as it is to buy an assault rifle". Trouble is, that would cost real money.