Biden, NRA set to meet
WASHINGTON The Obama administration is sitting down with gun owners groups -- including the National Rifle Association -- as officials look at ways to curb gun violence.
Vice President Biden, who is leading an administration-wide review of gun safety laws, has vowed urgent action in the wake of last month's massacre at a Connecticut elementary school.
The meeting with the NRA is one of three Biden has scheduled for Thursday, as he prepares to make recommendations on gun policy by the end of the month. Besides the NRA, Biden and other officials are meeting with sportsmen and wildlife interest groups, as well as people from the entertainment industry.
The NRA, the nation's largest gun-rights group, has blocked gun control efforts in the past and is opposing any new ones.
Shortly after last month's shooting in Newtown, Conn., President Obama tasked Biden with heading a commission to come up with recommendations on gun policy by the end of January.
Mr. Obama supports steps including reinstating a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines and closing loopholes that enable many gun buyers to avoid background checks.
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But the White House will likely recommend that Congress go further by requiring universal background checks for gun buyers and establishing a national gun database, reports CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante.
Senior administration officials tell CBS News the president is likely to unveil his ideas to reduce gun violence next week. He will also push his gun control agenda in his State of the Union address next month.
Biden, who met with representatives of victims groups and gun-safety organizations Wednesday, said officials are considering steps that could "take thousands of people out of harm's way" and improve the safety of millions more.
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"I want to make it clear that we are not going to get caught up in the notion that unless we can do everything, we're going to do nothing," Biden told groups including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "It's critically important we act."
Administration officials face tougher audiences today in meeting with the NRA, as well as gun retailers. Attorney General Eric Holder is hosting the meeting with retailers this afternoon, which in addition to Wal-Mart will include, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Bass Pro Shops, Big 5 Sporting Goods, Cabela's, Dick's Sporting Goods, Dunham's Sports, Gander Mountain, and Sportsman's Warehouse.
The NRA's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, has dismissed the assault weapons ban as "a phony piece of legislation" and has recommended putting armed guards in all schools as a way to stop another school shooting.
In a radio interview late Tuesday night with Brooklyn GOP Radio, NRA President David Keene lashed out at both Mr. Obama and Biden, saying, "I think they're being disingenuous. I think that they've seen this as an opportunity to go after the Second Amendment, which they've wanted to do for years, if not decades, and I think they're going to do everything they can to strip Americans of their right to keep and bear arms."
Biden said he wanted to hear from "all parties, on whatever side of this debate you fall."
In a nod to political realities that could imperil sweeping gun-control legislation, Biden said the administration is weighing executive action in addition to recommending legislation by Congress.
Recommendations to the Biden group include making gun-trafficking a felony, getting the Justice Department to prosecute people caught lying on gun background-check forms and ordering federal agencies to send data to the National Gun Background Check Database.
The Brady Campaign says some 40 percent of gun sales are made without background checks, such as at gun shows and over the Internet.
The shootings in Newtown, in which 20 children and six adults were killed by a man with a military-style semiautomatic rifle, have prodded the administration to act. Mr. Obama had remained largely silent on gun control after the 2011 shootings in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six people and wounded 12 others, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and the Colorado movie theater killing of a dozen people and wounding of many more last July.
Biden, referring to the Newtown shootings, said at the White House, "Every once in a while, there's something that awakens the conscience of the country, and that tragic event did it in a way like nothing I've seen in my career."
Biden said he and Mr. Obama are determined to take action.
"We can affect the well-being of millions of Americans and take thousands of people out of harm's way if we act responsibly," he said.
The president hopes to announce his administration's next steps to tackle gun violence shortly after he is sworn in for a second term.
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Private firearm ownership has skyrocketed while firearm related deaths continue to decline, so the information provided by the anti-firearms group is flawed and purposely deceitful.
Typical
From 2006 thru 2010 firearms related deaths have fallen by almost 17% , so again these statistics point to a reduction of firearm related violence AFTER the assault weapons ban of '92 expired.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl08.xls
Those that would deprive the Citizens of these United States continue to scamper away from the truth, the facts, statistics, and numbers do not support their positions so they get angry and make up scenarios to twist the perceptions of those that are neutral in this debate.
Because their truth does not support their position, they must be driven by an agenda not made public.
With violent crime and murder going down by 50% in the last 20 years I am curious which part of the firearms bans have been successful in actually reducing these crimes ?
The violent crimes and murders started declining 2 years before the failed assault weapons ban of '94 and continued to decline 7 years after the sun set on that ignorant idea, so again with the population increasing the violence and murders dropped.
In 1992 violent crimes accounted for 757 per 100000 and murders were at 9.3 per 100000
in 2011 Violent crimes accounted for 386 per 100000 and murders were at 4.7 per 100000
By the way, Great Brittan and Wales have a violent crime rate 3.5 times greater than the United States which is at 1361 per 100000.
Though they have a lower murder rate which is at 1.3 which is about 3.5 times lower than ours we have a population almost 6 times larger than theirs.
So again how do the gun grabbing ideas actually work according to the numbers ?
Bunch of pathetic losers bent on some twisted agenda based on moronic ideals that do not work
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/june/crimes_061112/crimes_061112
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb0812/hosb0812?view=Binary
The NRA would never let the 2nd amendment be amended no matter how many 6 year old kids lay dead in their classroom...
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Incidents of which you speak, while shocking and emotional, do not comprise a high enough percentage of gun violence to warrant sweeping restrictions of our rights.
It has already been proven that gun control laws do not have any impact on gun violence and, unless you have a crystal ball, you cannot say any gun control law would have prevented this incident from happening.
Nutcases are going to figure out a way to kill and destroy, if that is their urge, regardless of the controls you have in place. Calm down.
The Supreme Court held:[43]
(1) The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2-53.
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This is another part of the dilemma over gun ownership rights. The court has generally held in recent years that the Second Amendment is an individual, not "collective" right. It is a specific right, not a "human" right. It can be taken away, and even not apply to many people in this society, such an illegal residents, convicts, and unnaturalized citizens yet to be granted full citizenship. It also doesn't apply to military or paramilitary contexts, either.
The term militia essentially means a "militia of one," but only those that are protected exclusively in their individual right to bear arms. In many contexts, rights to weapons possession and use is not individualized as a right or action protected under the law, and the military, paramilitary and civilian boundaries distinguishing between the two is sometimes complicated.
Freedom of speech, religion, public assembly and bearing arms can be, and are, restricted. They are not blanket rights, and were never intended to be so.
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Hence part of the reason they are YOUR individual rights, not necessarily everyone else's AND yours. I am not sure we are in disagreement, except to say that the term "militia" certainly did mean people in 'lockstep' with one another, bearing arms. Ever heard of Lexington and Concord?
Now tell me that those like Paul Revere and others, and the ones who fought and died for independence were not a militia, leave alone well-regulated or not. They were "The People," but that doesn't mean they were defending against and at war with others who were of "The People" as well. When together and at war against the British, they were not.
That was the "collective" side of the Second Amendment, not every citizen bearing arms as a matter of only personal protection or sport, or target practice. That's the individual side, one much more relevant today than in the collective sense of the right, 237 years ago.
Legal (phhhtt) wouldn't be protected by hisown? huh...
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Oh no, allow me please: Huh? (I'm not holding my breath for a reply)
When it applies to right wingers it refers to their thinking in black and white. Perfect example: any gun control is socialism or communism.
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That is not "reactionary". I didn't think you knew what it meant, I just wanted you to prove it. You evidently read someone misuse the term on some lib blog somewhere and just regurgitated it. Thanks for the clarification.