The President is announcing that he and the Administration will:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system. This is already being done accept with states that are not following Obama’s immigration fiat. I those cases the federal government has been told not to cooperate with these states.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system. In other words having doctors break the doctor/ patient confidentially oath.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system. States already share criminal information with each other.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks. Just what criminal goes through legal means to get a gun? Will this also apply to those involved in Fast and Furious?
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun. You mean they aren’t running background checks now before they return a seized weapon?
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers. What if it’s a father giving a gun to his son, or if a collection is left to someone in a will? Do you have to a gun dealer and have him run a background check on your son? Exactly what will they be looking for on these background checks? If you have a parking ticket will that stop you from being able to buy a gun? How far back will they go in these background checks?
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign. Hasn’t the NRA been doing this for over 100 years?
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission). ???? I’ve never seen a gun safe that didn’t work, or a gun lock. The only time they don’t work is when they aren’t used.
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. You mean they aren’t doing this already?
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement. Spend tax dollars that we don’t have on a report that will do nothing to stop gun violence.
11. Nominate an ATF director. This is something Obama is supposed to do a part of setting up his cabinet. He and congress have been fighting over his nomination for the past 4 years.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations. You mean the police don’t already have training in this? I believe most first responders and schools already have plans in place, Also the NRA offered to come in to any place that would have them and give free training on what to do and how to handle these situations almost 10 years ago.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime. You mean they aren’t prosecuting gun crime now? What are they doing giving them a PELL grant and sending them to school?
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. More tax dollars spent on useless reports that will amount to nothing. I didn’t know gun violence was a disease.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies. Once again another useless report, more tax dollars wasted and by Eric Holder of all people, his F&F debacle has killed more people than the Sandy Hook, and Aurora shooters combined.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes. Is this really anyone’s business but the patients?
17. Release a letter to health-care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law-enforcement authorities. They are already required to do this if they feel the patient or anyone is in danger of being hurt
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers. The NRA recommended this and were ridiculed by the press for even suggesting it. This is Obama’s way of getting the police unions more tax dollars.
19. Develop model emergency-response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education. Once again the NRA offered to come in free of charge and help develop these plans to anyone that wanted them..
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental-health services that Medicaid plans must cover. Don’t they already have this information? Just how and what have they been doing all this time?
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges. What does this even have to do with guns?
22. Commit to finalizing mental-health-parity regulations. Once again this has nothing to do with guns.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health. Why did Obama even need an Executive Action to get this done? Wouldn’t an email telling her to do this have sufficed?
This whole thing yesterday was a dog and pony show that will waste more tax dollars and accomplish little if nothing at all. Even Senate Democrats are backing away from it. Harry Reed is already saying they are going to slow things down and look into it further. They lost their asses in the elections after Clinton signed his gun legislation banning assault weapons and don’t want it to happen again.