Obama to test limits of executive action
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s bid to tighten rules on firearms sales will have only a limited — and hard to measure — impact with millions of weapons in circulation across the U.S.
Obama’s plan to target small- scale gun sellers who aren’t required to conduct background checks on buyers wouldn’t have blocked the sales of weapons used in most recent mass shootings, including the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., and the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The firearms in those cases were purchased legally through conventional outlets.
Few of the guns bought from unlicensed dealers are sold directly to criminals. A study by the Department of Justice found just 0.7 percent of state prison inmates in 1997 had purchased their weapons at a gun show. By contrast, nearly 40 percent of inmates said they obtained the firearm used in their crime from family or friends, and 39 percent said they got the weapon from an illegal street source.
That’s supported by a study released last year by researchers at the University of Chicago and Duke University who surveyed inmates at Chicago’s Cook County jail. They found it was rare for criminal offenders to obtain guns through formal channels, with just 1 in 10 saying they had purchased the weapon at a gun store or pawn shop. Some 70 percent said they instead got their weapons through friends, family, or street connections, and that weapons had regularly passed through multiple owners.
“What they told us was that they were not buying their guns at flea markets or gun shows,” said Philip J. Cook, a professor of public policy, economics and sociology at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
“To the extent that continues to be the case, I would say the president’s action in this area is not going to have much direct effect on criminal access to guns,” he said.
Still, Cook said the move could have an indirect effect on preventing gun deaths by disrupting the supply chain that supplies the underground market.
Obama, who failed to get background check legislation passed after the 2012 massacre in Newtown, acknowledged the limits of what he can do without help from lawmakers.
Obama met Monday with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and Thomas Brandon, deputy director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He accepted a report from the three officials on what the White House has called “common-sense” steps to stem gun violence that claims the lives of more than 30,000 Americans each year.
“I think everybody here is all too familiar with the statistics,” Obama said. While saying congressional action is needed to have a bigger impact, Obama told his advisers to recommend ways to strengthen enforcement “and prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands.”
Gun control advocates argue that any constraints on access to weapons will reverberate throughout the murky gun market that has been booming as the threat of new restrictions has made news. According to the FBI, the agency’s National Instant Background Check System processed 23.1 million firearm background checks in 2015. That was 2.2 million more background checks than the previous year, and an all-time record for the agency.