Obama’s order gives gun control a chance
Pro-firearms lobby in the US has forced president to use the only option he has — executive order
United States President Barack Obama’s decision to use his executive authority to fight the ongoing tsunami of gun violence in the United States is a long-overdue and depressingly timid step in the right direction. The specific measures, which were announced yesterday, are expected to be a pale imitation of the bills that failed in the US Congress three years ago. These measures are also compromised, since they gain their authority under presidential executive order, which is limited in both scope and time. If a Republican were elected in November, Obama’s actions could be erased just as easily as they were introduced.
Even lacking details of the plans, Republicans wasted no time in bashing them, with Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump hitting the far right’s panic button by labelling the actions as a way to bar the purchasing of a gun. Other GOP officials are challenging the president’s authority to act. A court case to stop even these limited controls, which will likely do little more than enforce already existing laws and extend background checks, is imminent.
But Obama has no other option. The GOP and the National Rifle Association have used their disproportional influence and wealth to quash every measure — no matter how reasonable — that would stop the plague of mass gun killings that have taken the lives of almost 26,000 people in the US over the past two years. Democrats, at both the state and National level, seem incapable of generating the political will to push through any type of gun reform through the legislatures. But rather than face defeat, Obama is trying to build momentum. His actions give him something to build it on. But it will be a tough fight. If the recent terrorism-related shootings in San Bernardino in December and the murder of 20 first-graders in Newtown Connecticut in 2012 lacked the necessary visceral horror to create the desire to halt the US gun culture, then Obama and the whole country will be left wondering what does. It’s a question that no civilised country or its leader should be forced to ask.