Biden: Obama exploring executive orders to combat gun violence
By Josh Levs, CNN
updated 7:33 AM EST, Thu January 10, 2013
Biden task force chills gun stock rally
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- White House responds to petition calling for Piers Morgan to be deported
- Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy says "more guns are not the answer"
- Burlington, Vermont, passed a resolution that could lead to an assault weapons ban
- Wal-Mart reversed a decision, saying it now will attend a Thursday meeting
On Wednesday night, Piers Morgan goes one-on-one with firearms lobbyist Larry Pratt over guns in America. "Piers Morgan Tonight" airs nightly at 9 ET.
(CNN) -- President Barack Obama is exploring
executive orders to help prevent mass shootings in America, Vice
President Joe Biden said Wednesday.
"The president is going
to act. Executive orders, executive action, can be taken," Biden told
reporters before meetings with groups representing survivors of mass
shootings. "We haven't decided what this is yet, but we're compiling it
all with the help of the attorney general and all the rest of the
Cabinet members."
Legislative action also is needed, Biden said.
"I'm convinced 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.
VA Tech survivor on gun violence meeting
Biden: Gun effort a 'moral issue'
President Obama
vowed
last month that a new task force overseen by Biden will provide
"concrete proposals" by the end of January to reduce gun violence. The
group, which includes an array of Cabinet members and government
officials, was established in the wake of the massacre in Newtown,
Connecticut, that left 27 people dead -- 20 of them elementary school
children.
In addition to gun laws,
the group is looking at mental health care and what the president has
described as a culture that often "glorifies guns and violence."
Biden's brief remarks Wednesday came before what will likely be some of the most emotional testimony before the task force.
We can... take thousands of people out of harm's way, if we act responsibly.
Vice President Joe Biden
Among those addressing the group to push for tougher gun laws is Colin Goddard of the Brady Campaign.
He was shot four times in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, in which a gunman killed 32 people and himself.
"My job is to represent
the voice of the overwhelming majority of Americans ... that want some
comprehensive, common sense changes to our gun policy," he told CNN
Wednesday. "There are common ground solutions that respect the Second
Amendment."
Many gun sales take
place without background checks, and "that's bad policy," he argues.
Conducting such checks "doesn't stop a law-abiding citizen from getting a
gun. But somebody with a history of illness, felony record, they need
to get checked."
The campaign's phones have been "ringing off the hook" since the Newtown massacre, he said.
Reaction to Newtown school killings
The task force will also hear from gun safety organizations Wednesday.
Gun lobby faces challenge
On Thursday, Biden's group will hear from the other side: gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association.
The NRA has argued that it is committed to keeping people protected, but that a focus on stricter gun control is misguided.
NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre has called for all U.S. schools to have armed guards
NRA President David Keene later
told CNN the group supports schools choosing whether they want armed guards.
A rising chorus of voices is standing up against the NRA and the gun lobby's sway over U.S. politics.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords,
shot in the head in a mass shooting two years ago, and her husband Mark
Kelly, a former Navy captain and astronaut,
launched a new political action committee Tuesday to end what they called lawmakers' "fear" of the gun lobby.
White House responds to petition to deport Piers Morgan
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Looking beyond assault weapons ban
CNN's Piers Morgan has also
garnered attention
for speaking out against the influence of the gun lobby and pushing
stricter gun control, which led more than 100,000 people to sign a
petition on the White House website calling for him to be deported.
"Let's not let arguments
over the Constitution's Second Amendment violate the spirit of its
First," White House spokesman Jay Carney
wrote in a response Wednesday.
"Americans may disagree
on matters of public policy and express those disagreements vigorously,
but no one should be punished by the government simply because he or she
expressed a view on the Second Amendment -- or any other matter of
public concern," Carney added.
Carney's response did not mention Morgan by name.
Wal-Mart changes tune, will attend White House meeting
The nation's largest
retailer, meanwhile, made news for reversing a decision -- and saying it
will participate in a White House meeting.
Wal-Mart initially said
scheduling conflicts would prevent its "experts" on gun control from
attending. But on Wednesday it announced it
will send representatives to the Thursday meeting.
The company has had
"ongoing conversations with the administration, Congress, (New York)
Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg's office, sportsmen groups, suppliers and
others to listen and share our thoughts and experiences," company
spokesman David Tovar said in a statement to CNN.
"Knowing our senior
leaders could not be in Washington this week, we spoke in advance with
the vice president's office to share our perspective," he said. "We
underestimated the expectation to attend the meeting on Thursday in
person, so we are sending an appropriate representative to participate."
Wal-Mart sells guns and ammunition.
States, cities make their own moves
Across the country, people are sharing their views on what Washington should decide. Among them are Californians who have
packed town hall meetings.
Some have spoken out in
support of renewing a ban on assault weapons -- high-capacity weapons
that have been used in numerous mass shootings. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a
California Democrat, is pushing to
reinstate a ban that expired in 2004.
But others at the town
halls argue that banning those guns isn't the answer, and could even be a
slippery slope toward banning all guns.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in his annual State of the State address, said Wednesday his state must enact "the toughest assault weapons ban in the nation, period."
"Gun violence has been
on a rampage as we know first hand and we know painfully. We must stop
the madness, my friends," he said. "It has been enough."
Bloomberg, a longtime advocate of stricter gun control, is
pushing for tough steps nationwide.
In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy
choked up discussing the Newtown shooting, and said "more guns are not the answer."
"Freedom is not a
handgun on the hip of every teacher and security should not mean a guard
posted outside every classroom," he said Wednesday in the State of the
State address.
Burlington, Vermont, a city of less than 43,000 people, has already made a move of its own:
passing a resolution that could lead to a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.
The city council voted
10-3 in favor of the resolution, which will now be presented in public
hearings and voted on by the public before going to the state
legislature.
Amid the cacophony of
voices battling over the issue, two young former Marines have found
themselves in a spotlight online, representing very different views.
First, Joshua Boston
posted on CNN iReport an
open letter to Feinstein explaining why he would not abide by an
assault weapons ban. "I do not believe it is the government's right to
know what I own," he wrote in the post, which went viral. "Nor do I
think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me
by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the
same a crime."
On Tuesday, Nick DiOrio
responded with his own iReport.
Marines don't believe in following the law "only when it suits us,"
DiOrio wrote, calling Boston's letter "embarrassing because he makes
Marines seem insensitive and uncaring." DiOrio said he supports an
assault weapons ban.
end quote from:
I really don't think an executive order regarding the 2nd amendment is a good idea. There are just too many extreme right panicked people with automatic weapons out there right now listening to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for that to be a good idea. There must be some way to satisfy all the people. After all even 74 percent of the National Rifle Association think that Assault rifles with large magazines are a bad idea. But they might not like Assault rifles taken away entirely. I think there might be a temporary sales ban on Assault rifles for awhile like before though. I think our last ban on sales just went off a year or two ago.
Yes. I found an article on this:
PolicyMic
-
Politico
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