Flanked by schoolchildren and reading from their letters, President Obama announced measures he plans to take to prevent gun violence on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, the NRA began an ad campaign against gun control.?
President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, gestures as he talks about proposals to reduce gun violence, Wednesday, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
EnlargePresident?Barack Obama?launched the biggest U.S. gun-control push in generations on Wednesday, urging?Congress?to approve an assault weapons ban and background checks for all gun?buyers to prevent mass shootings like the?Newtown?school massacre.
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Rolling out a wide-ranging plan for executive and legislative action to curb gun?violence, Obama set up a fierce clash with the powerful U.S. gun?lobby and its supporters in?Congress, who will resist what they see as an encroachment on constitutionally protected gun?rights.
Obama presented his agenda at a?White House?event in front of an audience that included relatives of some of the 20 first-graders who were killed along with six adults by a gunman on Dec. 14 at?Sandy Hook Elementary School?in?Newtown,?Connecticut.
"We can't put this off any longer," Obama said, vowing to use "whatever weight this office holds" to make his proposals reality. "Congress?must act soon," he said, flanked by schoolchildren.
In a sign of how bitter the fight over gun?control could get, the?National Rifle Association?released an advertisement hours before Obama spoke that accused him of hypocrisy for accepting armed?Secret Service?protection for his daughters. The?White House?condemned the ad as "repugnant."
Until now, Obama had done little to change?America's gun?culture. But just days before his second inauguration, he appears determined to champion gun?control in his next term, which also will be dominated by debt and spending fights with?Congress?and a likely debate over immigration reform.
His plan calls on?Congress?to renew a prohibition on assault weapons sales that expired in 2004, require criminal background checks on all gun?purchases, including closing a loophole for gun?show sales, and pass a new federal gun?trafficking law - long sought by big-city mayors to keep out-of-state guns off their streets.
He also announced 23 steps he intends to take immediately without congressional approval. These include improving the existing system for background checks, lifting the ban on federal research on gun?violence, putting more counselors and "resource officers" in schools and better access to mental health services.
Obama signed three of the measures at the ceremony.
Assault weapons battle?
Obama, who has called the day of the?Newtown?massacre the worst of his presidency, looked down into the audience and addressed the parents of one of the Sandy Hook victims, Grace McDonald, 7, saying he had hung one of her paintings in his private study.
"Every time I look at that painting, I think about Grace, and I think about the life that she lived and the life that lay ahead of her, and most of all I think about how when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now," he said.
As he announced the gun?measures, Obama was accompanied by four children chosen from among those who sent letters to him about gun?violence and school safety. "We should learn from what happened at Sandy Hook. I feel really bad," 8-year-old Grant Fritz wrote, in a portion Obama read from the podium.
The most contentious piece of the package is Obama's call for a renewed ban on military-style assault weapons, a move that is unlikely to win approval because Republicans who control the?House of Representatives?are expected to oppose it.
The?Newtown?gunman, 20-year-old?Adam Lanza, used a Bushmaster AR-15 type assault rifle to shoot his victims, most of them 6- and 7-year-olds, before killing himself.
Law enforcement experts have noted, however, that the tighter background checks that Obama is proposing would not have prevented the?Connecticut?school massacre because the gunman's weapon was purchased legally by his mother.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/JrFdI1lhjKc/Obama-pushes-for-gun-control-NRA-pushes-back
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