SmashMouth

President Obama plans to unveil a comprehensive proposal to address gun violence on Wednesday but is already facing criticism, over his potential use of executive action to push multiple gun control measures and over the staging of the announcement itself.
The president plans to reveal the details of his plan shortly before noon on Wednesday, joined by children who wrote him letters about gun violence and school safety.
"(Obama) believes and knows that most all gun owners are highly responsible, they buy their guns legally, and they use them safely," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday. "He also has seen and believes that most gun owners support the idea of commonsense measures to prevent people who shouldn't have guns from getting them."
Carney, without getting into specifics, vowed a "comprehensive approach."
The announcement -- the product of a task force led by Vice President Biden -- is cloaked in controversy. That the announcement would include children as a backdrop added another level.
Roger Pilon, with the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, criticized the staging as "tacky," saying Obama has "carved up the population on a very emotional issue."
Yet in the wake of a school massacre last month in Connecticut that left 20 first-graders dead, as well as six educators, the president has stressed that children's lives could be on the line. Obama, like prior presidents, often invites members of the public to act as a backdrop for certain policy announcements. They are always carefully selected -- over the summer, he invited college students for a speech about student loan rates and middle-class taxpayers to another talk on extending tax rates. The White House has also invited doctors for speeches on the health care overhaul.
The substance of Obama's announcement Wednesday, though, is likely to cause the biggest stir.
Sources say he's weighing as many as 19 possible actions he could take through executive order. Those options could include more aggressively enforcing existing gun laws, beefing up national research on guns and ordering stricter action against people who lie on gun sale background checks. They could include ordering tougher penalties for gun-trafficking offenses and ordering federal agencies to make data on gun crimes more readily available.
Carney on Tuesday declined to specify what actions the president might take via executive order.
The president, though, has already voiced support for separate legislative measures in Congress, like the renewal of the assault weapons ban. That is expected to face the toughest opposition in Congress. But Biden, who led the gun violence task force and met with the president Monday, indicated the group is also pressing for limits on high-capacity magazines -- as well as background checks for anyone seeking to purchase a gun. Carney reiterated Tuesday that Obama still wants those measures pursued.
Such changes "make sense," Obama said. He said lawmakers will have to "examine their own conscience" in the debate ahead.
The president's push is drawing resistance from Republicans in Congress. Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, is now vowing to try to impeach Obama if he takes any action via executive order.
He called the plan to implement some controls administratively "an unconstitutional and unconscionable attack on the very founding principles of this republic."


Read more: White House draws criticism ahead of gun control announcement | Fox News

Danno

Sick' em boy, sick 'em.

arsaint

And he's going to surround himself with kids when he does it!

Of course: Obama to announce new gun policies surrounded by children « The Greenroom


Wonder if they will sing "Barrack Hussein Obama, mmmm, mmmm ,mmmm!" Wouldn't be the first time...

Danno

Will their parent be there?

OldMaid

No one is taking no one's guns away.

No laws will made to stop the sell/purchase of guns bought legally and illgeally by criminals or non-criminals.

Obama nor any PofTUSA will be able to outlaw guns.

Mass shootings like Columbine to AZ to SandyHook, CT will continue.

It is just a fact of life here.

Crusader

That is a sad outlook on things.

As much as I LOVE big parts of the american culture that is one part that I hope we don't take after here in Sweden.

OldMaid

It is sad outlook on things. Don't blame me.
I did not make the rules of the game.
*It is a fact there will be more mass killings as there have been far too many of these.
*Guns are here to stay.
* Obama is NOT NOT CANNOT CANNOT WILL NOT WILL NOT take guns away. It is impossible to do.

Danno

And many said there's no F'ing way we'd ever have socialized medicine, but we do.

There are probably 100 things people once said {insert President name} would never do, but did.

The mass killings have NOTHING to do with guns.

They have EVERYTHING to do with the person behind the trigger.

Our nation is drifting farther and farther away from God and family, and it shows in our actions.

OldMaid

I agree with you Danno on God, family , common sense.
You are preaching to the choir here.

Socialized med is not here.
I disagree.
Medicare is there for the elderly.
I don't know what elderly you know, but the elderly I know of have their own private medical insurance because it is needed as supplement. Lucky they are to have had good jobs to have this. I also know of an elderly couple with the wife who was a housewife as her job and the husband was self-employed. They have at 80 something Medicare, but they have to pay a few hundred a month for private medical insurance to balance that out.
Medicare is really not the grand package of medical insurance. False notion there.
Medicaid is there for the poor. They fair out much better. Free or low cost immunizations shots for kids, dental braces here in Texas is a big, new freebie, private hospitals and doctors to deliver those babies ( no county hosptial thing, uh-nah).

What is there for peoplke who are laid of, work part-time, work for small businesses, are in college and their folks want to still carry them on their insurance, those with pre-existing conditions?
I don't these tax paying Americans are asking for some freebies. I think they are asking to still be recognized by their insurance companies and would some lower rate. Cut rate. Small rate from a govt. run health care plan. If you don't have one, that is better than nothing.
How to pay for it all? This grand ObamaUtopia?
Easy.
Cut Medicaid. Spread the wealkth. Yeah, spread the wealth of Medicaid to include all those on that level. Better have something rather than nothing. Ohoh, you can have no mo dad-day bay-bay da-day and have USA pick up tab for all dem chil'ren. Ohhhhhhh.
Hmmm. might make some layers of our society think twice.
Yeah, you have to go with Medicaid to the county hopsitla. No more private suite at the private hospital.
Spread those dollars. Cut back.
Medicare. Lets be real. That will not be there for some us when we get whatever the age is they keep pushing back or wanting to push back.
Phase it out. Hardest thing the generation born after 1964 had to go through was deciding on what mall to go to and how to be greedy in the 1980's.

I often tell my Republican freinds I sound more Conservative, Republican than they do.


The mass killings you say have nothing to do with guns but with the people behind the guns.
Problem is how , when, where, can you legislate who gets guns?
Impossible to do.
Batshet crazy woman Lanza of CT , mother of that boy, had a few guns. She should not have had any guns in her home knowing her son was half cocked in the head. We know the results of what happened.
I am not for gangs having guns. How, when can you take the guns away from them?
How?
The AFL-CIO would be on that case in a minute.
If they are in a gang but no arrest sheet, how can one take a gun , legally purchased too away from them?

arsaint

If I could like this 1000 times I would.

Culture of death is being promoted by the left and we are reaping what we collectively sow...