Albert Allen of Rocky Face looks over a Smith & Wesson M&P-22 pistol Wednesday while he was at the Country Sportsman on Shorter Avenue to buy a gun for his wife. (Brittany Hannah, RN-T.com)
The president’s sweeping, $500 million plan, coming one month after the school massacre in Connecticut, marks the most comprehensive effort to tighten gun laws in nearly two decades. But his proposals, most of which are opposed by the National Rifle Association, face a doubtful future in a divided Congress where Republicans control the House.
Seeking to circumvent at least some opposition, Obama signed 23 executive actions on Wednesday, including orders to make more federal data available for background checks and end a freeze on government research on gun violence.
But he acknowledged that the steps he took on his own would have less impact than the broad measures requiring approval from Capitol Hill.
“To make a real and lasting difference, Congress, too, must act,” Obama said, speaking at a White House ceremony with school children and their parents. “And Congress must act soon.”
The president’s announcements capped a swift and wide-ranging effort, led by Vice President Joe Biden, to respond to the deaths of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. But Obama’s gun control proposals set him up for a tough political fight with Congress as he starts his second term, when he’ll need Republican support to meet three looming fiscal deadlines and pass comprehensive immigration reform.
“I will put everything I’ve got into this, and so will Joe,” the president said. “But I tell you, the only way we can change is if the American people demand it.”
Key congressional leaders were tepid in their response to the White House proposals.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s office signaled no urgency to act, with spokesman Michael Steel saying only that “House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations. And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was committed to ensuring that the Senate will consider gun violence legislation “early this year.” But he did not endorse any of Obama’s specific proposals.
The president vowed to use “whatever weight this office holds” to fight for his recommendations. He’s likely to travel around the country in the coming weeks to rally public support and could engage his still-active presidential campaign operation in the effort. But he’ll have to overcome a well-financed counter-effort by the NRA.
“This will be difficult,” Obama acknowledged. “There will be pundits and politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical, all-out assault on liberty — not because that’s true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves.”
Even as the issue was raging across the nation, Rome gun shops were busy Wednesday.
Albert Allen of Rocky Face visited Country Sportsman on Shorter Avenue in West Rome to purchase a gun for his wife, Yvonne.
Allen said home protection was his goal in the selection of the black Sig Sauer Mosquito, a .22 caliber semiautomatic pistol. He picked out the gun for its size and make, which he said would be easier on his wife’s arthritic hands.
“There’s so much that could happen after work,” said Allen about his wife’s concern for safety. “She has a little difficulty with her hands.”
Vic Morris of Summerville stopped into Tom’s Gun Shop in Rome to look over a Ruger 10/22 semiautomatic rifle with a checkered walnut stock.
“I like the wooden ones,” said Morris. “It’s more of what I remember my father and grandfather using.”
A self-described collector of guns, Morris said that recent talk of new gun legislation did not have sway on his decision to look for a new rifle.
“I’ve just wanted one,” said Morris.
The president, speaking in front of an audience that included families of some of those killed in Newtown, said 900 Americans had lost their lives to gun violence in the four weeks since the school shootings.
“We can’t put this off any longer,” Obama declared. “Every day we wait, the number will keep growing.”
Many Democrats say an assault weapons ban faces the toughest road in Congress. Obama wants lawmakers to reinstate the expired 1994 ban on the high-grade weapons, and strengthen the measure to prevent manufacturers from circumventing the prohibition by making cosmetic changes to banned guns.
The president is also likely to face opposition to his call for Congress to limit ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.
In a statement Wednesday, the NRA said, “Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected” by Obama’s efforts and the nation’s children “will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.”
And on the eve of Obama’s announcement, the NRA released an online video accusing him of being an “elitist hypocrite” for sending his daughters to school with armed Secret Service agents while opposing having guards with guns at all U.S. schools.
White House spokesman Jay Carney called the video “repugnant and cowardly.”
Government scientists have been prohibited from researching the causes and prevention of gun violence since 1996, when a budget amendment was passed that barred researchers from spending taxpayer money on such studies.
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