Biden, NRA clash over new gun control proposals

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, sec­ond from right, ges­tures as he speaks dur­ing a meet­ing with Sports­men and Women and Wildlife Inter­est Groups and mem­ber of his cab­i­net Thurs­day in the Eisen­hower Exec­u­tive Office Build­ing on the White House com­plex in Wash­ing­ton. Biden is hold­ing a series of meet­ings this week as part of the effort he is lead­ing to develop pol­icy pro­pos­als in response to the New­town, Conn., school shoot­ing (Asso­ci­ated Press | Susan Walsh)

ERICA WERNER

JULIE PACE

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Despite fresh oppo­si­tion from the National Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion, the Obama admin­is­tra­tion is assem­bling pro­pos­als to curb gun vio­lence that would include a ban on sales of assault weapons, lim­its on high-capacity ammu­ni­tion mag­a­zines and uni­ver­sal back­ground checks for gun buyers.

Sketch­ing out details of the plan Thurs­day, Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said he would give Pres­i­dent Barack Obama a set of rec­om­men­da­tions by next Tues­day. The NRA, one of the pro-gun groups that met with Biden dur­ing the day, rejected the effort to limit ammu­ni­tion and dug in on its oppo­si­tion to an assault weapons ban, which Obama has pre­vi­ously said he will pro­pose to Congress.

“The vice pres­i­dent made it clear, made it explic­itly clear, that the pres­i­dent had already made up his mind on those issues,” NRA pres­i­dent David Keene said fol­low­ing the meet­ing. “We made it clear that we dis­agree with them.”

Oppo­si­tion from the well-funded and polit­i­cally pow­er­ful NRA under­scores the chal­lenges that await the White House if it seeks con­gres­sional approval for lim­it­ing guns and ammu­ni­tion. Obama can use his exec­u­tive pow­ers to act alone on some gun mea­sures, but his options on the pro­pos­als opposed by the NRA are lim­ited with­out Con­gress’ cooperation.

Obama has pushed reduc­ing gun vio­lence to the top of his domes­tic agenda fol­low­ing last month’s mas­sacre of 20 chil­dren and six adults at a Con­necti­cut ele­men­tary school. The pres­i­dent put Biden in charge of an administration-wide task force and set a late Jan­u­ary dead­line for proposals.

“I com­mit­ted to him I’d have these rec­om­men­da­tions to him by Tues­day,” Biden said Thurs­day, dur­ing a sep­a­rate White House meet­ing with sports­men and wildlife groups. “It doesn’t mean it’s the end of the dis­cus­sion, but the pub­lic wants us to act.”

The vice pres­i­dent later hud­dled pri­vately with the NRA and other gun owner groups for more than 90 min­utes. Par­tic­i­pants in the meet­ing described it as an open and frank dis­cus­sion, but one that yielded lit­tle move­ment from either side on long-held positions.

Richard Feld­man, the pres­i­dent of the Inde­pen­dent Firearm Own­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, said all were in agree­ment on a need to keep guns out of the hands of crim­i­nals and peo­ple with men­tal health issues. But when the con­ver­sa­tion turned to broad restric­tions on high capac­ity mag­a­zines and assault weapons, Feld­man said Biden sug­gested the pres­i­dent had already made up his mind to seek a ban.

“Is there wig­gle room and give?” Feld­man said. “I don’t know.”

White House offi­cials said the vice pres­i­dent didn’t expect to win over the NRA and other gun groups on those key issues. But the admin­is­tra­tion was hop­ing to soften their oppo­si­tion in order to rally sup­port from pro-gun law­mak­ers on Capi­tol Hill.

Biden’s pro­pos­als are also expected to include rec­om­men­da­tions to address men­tal health care and vio­lence on tele­vi­sion and in movies and video games. Those issues have wide sup­port from gun rights groups and pro-gun lawmakers.

The vice pres­i­dent also met Thurs­day with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the enter­tain­ment indus­try, includ­ing Com­cast Corp. and the Motion Pic­ture Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­ica. He’ll hold talks Fri­day with the video game industry.

Dur­ing his meet­ing with sport­ing and wildlife groups, Biden said that while no rec­om­men­da­tions would elim­i­nate all future shoot­ings, “there has got to be some com­mon ground, to not solve every prob­lem but dimin­ish the prob­a­bil­ity that our chil­dren are at risk in their schools and dimin­ish the prob­a­bil­ity that firearms will be used in vio­lent behav­ior in our society.”

As the meet­ings took place in Wash­ing­ton, a stu­dent was shot and wounded at a rural Cal­i­for­nia high school and another stu­dent was taken into custody.

Biden also talked about holes in NICS — the National Instant Crim­i­nal Back­ground Check Sys­tem — when states don’t relay infor­ma­tion to the data­base used by deal­ers to check pur­chasers. Advo­cates blame Con­gress for not fully fund­ing a law that pro­vides money to help states send records to the database.

Gun con­trol back­ers see plenty of room for exec­u­tive action when it comes to improv­ing back­ground checks and other areas.

For exam­ple, advo­cates say Obama could order the Jus­tice Depart­ment to pros­e­cute more peo­ple flagged by back­ground checks as pro­hib­ited pur­chasers when they try to buy guns; expand a rule that requires deal­ers to notify the Bureau of Alco­hol Tobacco Firearms and Explo­sives when some­one tries to buy mul­ti­ple semi­au­to­matic rifles, a pro­gram now con­fined to Mex­ico bor­der states, and increase enforce­ment actions at gun shows.

The group May­ors Against Ille­gal Guns has sent the White House 40 steps it says would save lives and dra­mat­i­cally improve enforce­ment of exist­ing laws with­out any action by Congress.

Sev­eral Cab­i­net mem­bers have also taken on an active role in Biden’s gun vio­lence task force, includ­ing Attor­ney Gen­eral Eric Holder. He met Thurs­day with Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest firearms seller, along with other retail­ers such as Bass Pro Shops and Dick’s Sport­ing Goods.

The pres­i­dent hopes to announce his administration’s next steps to tackle gun vio­lence shortly after he is sworn in for a sec­ond term. He has pledged to push for new mea­sures in his State of the Union address.

Posted by AP News on Jan 10 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.