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WASHINGTON (AP) - Six months after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot, the White House is preparing to propose some new steps on gun safety, though they're likely to fall short of the bold measures activists would like to see.
Spokesman Jay Carney said that the new steps would be made public "in the near future." He didn't offer details, but people involved in talks at the Justice Department to craft the new measures said they expected to see something in the next several weeks. Whatever is proposed is not expected to involve legislation or take on major issues, like banning assault weapons, but could include executive action to strengthen the background check system or other steps.
"The president directed the attorney general to form working groups with key stakeholders to identify common-sense measures that would improve American safety and security while fully respecting Second Amendment rights," Carney said Thursday. "That process is well under way at the Department of Justice, with stakeholders on all sides working through these complex issues, and we expect to have some more specific announcements in the near future."
Anti-gun groups have been disappointed to see no action so far from President Barack Obama, who supported tough gun control measures earlier in his career but fell largely silent upon becoming president. Some activists were using the opportunity of the six-month anniversary of the Giffords shooting on Friday to speak up.
The shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., killed six people and wounded more than a dozen others, including Giffords. Two months later, Obama wrote an opinion piece in Giffords' local paper, the Arizona Daily Star, calling for "sound and effective steps" to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, including strengthening background checks. So far the president has done nothing and administration officials have signaled that no major steps should be expected, given the climate in Congress against gun legislation of any kind.
That's not stopping activists from pushing Obama. The group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, headed by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sent Obama a letter calling him to act.
"To prevent the next Tucson, we need a comprehensive background check system, which is what the president called for in April," said the director of the mayors' group, Mark Glaze. "That said, there are many steps the president can take on his own authority, without new laws, that could make a very real difference."
The group's suggestions included enforcing reporting laws that could have stopped the Tucson shooter from getting a weapon.
July 8, 2011 @ 7:24 am
fidel obama is trying to start a civil war people.
guns,god,wealth redistribution,class warfare,muslim brotherhood,homosexual agenda,amnesty for everybody,socilist communist tendancies,takeing over private sector,union lover,food nazi,stinks at golf,god complex,and he is anti american to the core.
feel free to add to the list.
government should be affraid of the populus not the populus is affraid of government.
July 8, 2011 @ 8:33 am
All that you list are the things that the lazy, hand-out-seekers, Illegals, crooks, immorals, union bosses, Clinton Maxists, George Soros, his Socialist Attorney General, Acornites, etc believe in…and as you have clearly pointed out, as well as I, and most others here have pointed out in the past these misfits are very possibly the “new majority” he is depending on to get a second term.
That is why we must be VIGILANT…and demand PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP at voting time…THIS IS THE LEAST WE CAN DO…
And if we just let our CONGRESS sleep on the job, if we don’t threaten their jobs, their lack of action, their promises to defend this Constitution…then WE DISERVE EVERYTHING they do to us and this NATION…
Let us not forget God blessed America, then handed it over to us as Stewards…
Surely at this point He is disappointed!
We have taken something, a great gift, and SCREWED it up by NOT CARING AND INACTION!
July 8, 2011 @ 9:15 am
We the people will not give up our guns so criminals like Obama can hold the country hostage. We will not let our freedoms suffer at the hands of these liberal idiots. The only reason this Nation has lasted is because of the freedoms that are listed in the Constitution.
NO MAN, NO PRESIDENT, NO CONGRESS, AND NO SENATE, HAS THE RIGHT TO SUBVERT OUR GOD GIVEN RIGHTS THAT PREDATE ALL GOVERNMENTS OF ALL NATIONS! ! !
IMPEACH OBAMA NOW! ! ! !
July 8, 2011 @ 10:34 am
“Winston, come into the dining room, it’s time to eat,” Julia
yelled to her husband.
“In a minute, honey, it’s a tie score,” he answered.
Actually Winston wasn’t very interested in the traditional
holiday football game between Detroit and Washington .
Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports
Statute of 2018, outlawing tackle football for its “unseemly
violence” and the “bad example it sets for the rest of the
world”, Winston was far less of a football fan than he used
to be.
Two-hand touch wasn’t nearly as exciting.
Yet it wasn’t the game that Winston was uninterested in.
It was more the thought of eating another Tofu Turkey.
Even though it was the best type of VeggieMeat available
after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity
Act of 2014, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden
foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce,
and mincemeat pie), it wasn’t anything like real turkey.
And ever since the government officially changed the name
of “Thanksgiving Day” to “A National Day of Atonement” in
2015, to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims’ historically
brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost
a lot of its luster.
Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting.
The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent
light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it
actually was, and the room was always cold.
Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act
of 2016, mandating all thermostats – which were monitored
and controlled by the electric company – be kept at 68
degrees, every room on the north side of the house was
barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.
Still, it was good getting together with family.
Or at least most of the family.
Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October,
when she had used up her legal allotment of life-saving
medical treatment.
He had had many heated conversations with the
Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private
insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone
was forced into the government health care program.
And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment,
it was a futile effort.
“The RHC’s resources are limited”, explained the
government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the
phone.
“Your mother received all the benefits to which she was
entitled.—- I’m sorry for your loss.”
Ed couldn’t make it either.
He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the
only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2019
outlawed the use of the combustion engines – for
everyone but government officials.
The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and
Ed didn’t want to spend a frosty night on the road
somewhere between here and there.
Thankfully, Winston’s brother, John, and his wife were
flying in.
Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had
extra cushions for the occasion.
No one complained more than John about the pain of
sitting down so soon after the government-mandated
cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated
his hemorrhoids.
Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity
bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added
“inconvenience” was an “absolute necessity” in order
to stay “one step ahead of the terrorists.”
Winston’s own body had grown accustomed to such
probing ever since the government expanded their
scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via
Anti-Profiling Act of 2016.
That law made it a crime to single out any group or
individual for “unequal scrutiny,” even when probable
cause was involved.
Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus
depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine.
Almost.
The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most
Americans expect a Court composed of six progressives
and three conservatives to leave the law intact.
“A living Constitution is extremely flexible”, said the
Court’s eldest member, Elena Kagan.
” Europe has had laws like this one for years.—-
We should learn from their example”, she added.
Winston’s thoughts turned to his own children.
He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter,
Brittany, mostly because she ignored him.
Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she
could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement
Dinner.
Their only real confrontation had occurred when he
limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was
all he could afford.
She whined for a week, but got over it.
His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether.
Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public
school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism, or any
of a number of other calamities were “just around the
corner”, but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic
attitude that ranged between simmering surliness and
outright hostility.
It didn’t help that Jason had reported his father to the
police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made
criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2013, which
outlawed smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another
human being.
Winston paid the $5,000 fine, which might have been
considered excessive before the American dollar became
virtually worthless as a result of QE13.
The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government
initiated was, once again, to “spur economic growth.”
This time, they promised to push unemployment below its
years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly
hopeful.
Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston
thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement.
At least, he had his memories.
He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children
would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days,
long before government promises to make life “fair for
everyone” realized their full potential.
Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never
realized how much things could change when they didn’t
happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get
used to them.
He wondered what might have happened if the public had
stood up while there was still time, maybe back around
2011, when all the real nonsense began.
“Maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today if we’d just
said ‘enough is enough’ when we had the chance,” he
thought.
Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.
July 8, 2011 @ 11:14 am
Well thought out piece. When the book comes out, I want a copy.
July 8, 2011 @ 11:17 am
TexasGuy…I love it. Unfortunately it’s all becoming a reality! Is this your own comment or did you find it somewhere? I’d like to email it a few Democrats I know!
July 8, 2011 @ 11:43 am
No book. The deal fell through when they passed the Anti-Sedition Act of 2013, which criminalized any and all criticism of the government, its agencies, representatives, laws, rules and regulations.
Seriously, this is a composite of several email posts. There is no copyright, nor is there any restriction on its use, so feel free to send it to as many DemorcRATS as you wish. Good luck and good hunting.
July 8, 2011 @ 12:04 pm
Funny and sad all at the same time. Hopefully we will be able to vote this clown out of office and take back our country.
As far as the gun-control thing goes, the kid that shot Gabrielle Giffords sent up plenty of red flags, but the Sheriff’s department chose to ignore them because his mother worked for the county. Stricter gun control and more thorough background checks would not have kept him from getting his hands on a gun. Gun control only makes life more difficult for law-abiding citizens. Anyone willing to disregard the law that makes murder illegal wouldn’t have any respect for gun control laws.
July 8, 2011 @ 11:17 am
Are these new gun laws being designed by the same folks in the Administration and Justice Department who gave us “Operation Fast and Furious”?
July 8, 2011 @ 12:18 pm
Keeping guns out of the hands of criminals means out of the hands of conservatives and Tea Party participants. Obama’s street thug buddies get ‘em and Holder looks the other way.
July 8, 2011 @ 12:58 pm
Eric Holder will probably try to make it illegal for white people to own guns.
July 8, 2011 @ 12:26 pm
Der fuhrer-messiah want de guns. He has his gestpo/brownshirts a’ la the affordable healthcare act to collect them from us.
Don’t say it can’t happen.
July 8, 2011 @ 1:01 pm
You can bet the ‘desperate situation’ on the southern border … where a ‘flood’ of American guns was ‘streaming’ into Mexico … was intended to be a major reason for the imposition of this executive order.
He is known to be slow on the uptake when events move faster than his teleprompter can be programmed.
Maybe he doesn’t realize that his plan no longer makes sense in light of “Gunwalker”, “Fast And Furious”, and (now) “Operation Castaway” in Florida.
July 8, 2011 @ 2:54 pm
The one thing that would have stopped Gerald Laughner from obtaining the handgun was if the loudmouthed Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County had reported the insane conduct of the same Mr. Laughner on each of the times that he had displayed mental instability. Unfortunately Mr. Laughner’s mother was an employee of Sheriff Clarence Dupnik and thus it seems that he was saving the family from embarrassment. To me, this is government corruption and now the rest of us legal gun owners are going to pay the price because this Sheriff chose not to report a friend’s son. If our public officials would just follow the laws that are on the books that they took an oath to enforce, we wouldn’t have half the problems we have.
July 8, 2011 @ 5:56 pm
It’s true we do need stricter mental health checks on some people.
Here’s some “Action” on gun safety:
Ban all Democrats, Liberals and Progressives from owning guns……They’re all crazy! ; )
July 9, 2011 @ 4:23 pm
That is the only common sense gun law proposal I have ever herd that makes common sense.
IMPEACH OBAMA NOW! ! ! !