President Obama’s push for Congress to enact stricter gun control measures appeared to be a lost cause when the Washington Times reported last month the White House was waving a white flag, shifting tactics as Vice President Joe Biden urged state and local governments to take up the effort.
Then Islamic terrorist Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured another 53 in Orlando one week ago, and Obama immediately returned to his call for “gun reform,” CBS reported.
“Being tough on terrorism, particularly the sorts of homegrown terrorism that we’ve seen now in Orlando and San Bernardino, means making it harder for people who want to kill Americans to get their hands on assault weapons that are capable of killing dozens of innocents as quickly as possible,” the president said.
Although Mateen repeatedly pledged his allegiance to ISIS while he was killing people, Obama placed the blame on guns.
“Time and again, we’ve observed moments of silence for victims of terror and gun violence. Too often, those moments have been followed by months of silence, by inaction, which is simply inexcusable,” he stated.
Obama previously announced an 11-point strategy of executive orders, regulations and rules both in 2013 and again in 2015 to control weapons.
In 2013, he demanded additional background checks, tracking information on people and their criminal histories, bans on magazines, ramping up prosecutions, training for police and more.
Two years later, he set up new requirements for federal firearms licenses, more background checks for those buying “dangerous firearms,” more criminal history information, more research, more crackdowns by states and more money for “investment.”
But the fight is far from over, with both sides gaining victories already this week.
In a decision for gun-control advocates, the U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that bans on “assault weapons” imposed in New York and Connecticut would be allowed to stand.
It a ruling that may have been affected by the current 4-4 ideological split in the court, the justices left untouched a lower court ruling affirming the bans.
The District of Columbia as well as Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland and California have bans on such weapons, while Minnesota and Virginia regulate them.
But a series of bills in the U.S. Senate in reaction to the Orlando attack has been scheduled for votes.
Similar bills were proposed several years ago after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, but even Obama’s intense lobbying was unable to sway enough members of Congress.
Even a gun-control supporter, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she didn’t expect the newly proposed changes to become law.
“What troubles me about the votes … is that they are repeats of the votes that we had after the San Bernardino shootings. And the result is going to be the same; neither is going to pass. I want to get something done, so I’ve been working with a group of Republicans and talking to many Democrats to put together a new proposal,” Collins told NPR.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wanted the Justice Department to have the power to stop anyone from purchasing a gun if they’ve been on a federal terrorist watch list in recent years.
Also, a proposal from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., would lock down the so-called “gun show” loophole and set up stricter rules for background checks.
From the GOP side were proposals to inform law enforcement when someone on a terror watch list tries to buy a weapon and another that would clarify “what it means to be found mentally deficient, with a way for people to appeal adverse decisions.
The nonprofit group Gun Owners of America pointed out in a public message intended for Congress that a poll of 15,000 law enforcement officers shows they, by a 2-1 margin, favor arming civilians as a better response to crime than expanding background checks. A whopping 91 percent of the respondents favor “armed civilians carrying firearms.”
GOA urged Congress to eliminate “gun-free zones” at schools and places such as the club in Orlando, where weapons are restricted or banned entirely.
Gun-rights advocates contend the focus needs to be on terrorism, not controlling guns.
WND reported last week the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that any gun rule governments can come up with as a requisite for carrying concealed weapons complies with the Constitution.
Alan M. Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, said the ruling misrepresented his group’s complaint.
“We never argued that there was a right to concealed carry,” he said. “Our complaint was that there is a right to carry, and the law in question did not allow it in any form. The court ignored what this case was really about to get around the challenge we raised.”
A summary of the decision said: “The right of a member of the general public to carry a concealed firearm in public is not, and never has been, protected by the Second Amendment. Therefore, because the Second Amendment does not protect in any degree the right to carry concealed firearms in public, any prohibition or restriction a state may choose to impose on concealed carry – including a requirement of ‘good cause,’ however defined – is necessarily allowed.”
The advocacy group Firearms Policy explained the case was brought by people who live in San Diego and Yolo counties in California.
They had wanted permits to carry but were denied permission.
State law requires an applicant to show “good cause” to be armed, and the court said that’s a good rule.
But at about the same time, lawmakers in West Virginia shot down their Democratic governor’s attempt to curb Second Amendment rights, voting to overturn his veto of a bill that gives all residents age 21 and over the right to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.
West Virginia was in line to become one of eight states that allow concealed carry without a permit. Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Maine, Vermont and Wyoming are so-called constitutional carry states. In Wyoming, the law applies to residents only.
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