GOP contenders slam Obama gun laws push
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s plan to impose new controls on gun sales in an effort to lessen gun violence drew sharp fire Sunday from Republican presidential candidates, who argued he lacks authority to enact the restrictions by executive order.
Obama, who has unsuccessfully sought for years to convince Congress to strengthen gun laws, is scheduled to meet Monday with Attorney General Loretta Lynch to review possible actions he can take that will withstand legal challenges.
“We know that we can’t stop every act of violence,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “But what if we tried to stop even one?”
Administration officials said Obama is considering an executive order that among other steps would require background checks for those who buy firearms at gun shows, a proposal that gun rights advocates have long blocked.
Several Republicans focused their criticism of Obama on his possible use of executive orders, rather than on proposals to make it harder for felons, the mentally ill and possible terrorists to acquire guns.
“I don’t like anything to do with changing our Second Amendment,” Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner in many polls, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Obama “just goes and signs executive orders on everything.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called Obama “a petulant child” who sidesteps Congress “whenever he can’t get what he wants.”
After the Oct. 1 mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, Obama ordered the Department of Justice to look for ways he might impose tougher restrictions by executive authority.
White House lawyers and policy advisers are studying how he might interpret existing law or strengthen regulations to require more background checks to weed out violent felons and mentally ill people as they try to buy guns.
The push for new measures to make it harder for felons and the mentally ill to acquire firearms took on new White House urgency after the terrorist attack that left 14 people dead in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, officials said. Police have said Enrique Marquez Jr. legally purchased two semi-automatic rifles that were used in the massacre.
But Marquez faces federal criminal charges for allegedly transferring the weapons to his friends, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who were shot and killed by police after the attack at the Inland Regional Center.
Obama’s past efforts
to persuade Congress to pass stricter gun laws, including a massive push after 26 children and adults were shot and killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, have failed despite repeated mass shootings.
The issue is likely to dominate Obama’s first week back at the White House after a family holiday in Hawaii and is likely to generate heated debate in the final weeks before Iowans cast the first votes of the 2016 election season.
GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, called Obama’s possible use of an executive order “completely inappropriate.”
“His first impulse is always to take rights away from law-abiding citizens,” Bush said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And it’s wrong. And to use executive powers that he doesn’t have is a pattern that’s quite dangerous.”