After gun control
legislation was soundly defeated in the U.S. Senate last week, President Barack
Obama said the votes were only “round one” in the fight to reduce gun
violence. But some Americans are skeptical that there will be a round
two.
Despite the political
setback, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Monday the gun
control campaign will go on.
“Well, as I said
before, I don't have a legislative strategy to lay out to you today. But there
will be a round two and there will be a continued effort by this
administration,” Carney said.
No decision has been
announced on when or even whether the White House will try again to push gun
control legislation through Congress.
In the House of
Representatives, a bipartisan bill requiring stricter background checks for gun
buyers has been introduced. Democrat Mike Thompson, chairman of the House Gun
Violence Prevention Task Force, sponsored the measure, along with Republican
Peter King.
But the Republican-led
House is likely to be even less receptive to gun control legislation than the
Democratic-controlled Senate, where last week’s bills failed to gain the 60
votes needed for passage.
Thompson said the
political realities of the situation were made clear to him when he asked a Republican
lawmaker to add his name to the legislation as a co-author.
“He said, ‘I will vote
for it, but I do not want to co-author.’ And I asked him, I said, ‘Do you
know how many people in your district support this?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I
saw the poll.’ He said, ‘93 percent in my district support this.’ I
said, ‘And you do not want to co-author it?’ He said, ‘Not one of them
have called me,’” Thompson said.
Meanwhile, the National
Rifle Association and other gun owners’ groups have spent heavily to defeat gun
control initiatives and mobilized their members.
Michael Hammond, legal
adviser for the gun rights group Gun Owners of America, says the lobbying
effort strikes fear into lawmakers.
“What they have reason
to be afraid of is 100,000,000 American gun owners, that when we say, ‘Here is
what the situation is,’ that millions of Americans will get on the phones and
not get off the phones until they have made it clear to their senators that
they value the Second Amendment,” Hammond said.
Hammond says his group
has targeted 15 Democratic senators, up for re-election in 2014, who voted for
the doomed Senate gun bill.
At the same time,
public support for gun control legislation appears to have slipped since the
killing of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut school in December.
A new public opinion
poll by USA Today shows that only 49 percent of Americans surveyed favor new
gun control laws, and President Obama is considering options outside Capitol
Hill.
With the defeat of the
legislative package, the president said he will pursue executive actions
designed to reduce gun violence.
“Even without Congress,
my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our
communities. We are going to address the barriers that prevent states
from participating in the existing background check system. We are going
to give law enforcement more information about lost and stolen guns, so it can
do its job. We are going to help to put in place emergency plans to
protect our children in their schools,” Obama said.
And as he has done
before, Obama is asking Americans to put pressure on their lawmakers to back
any future gun violence bills.
Sources :
http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-gun-laws/1647600.html
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