Obama vs. the NRA

Obama vs. the NRA

He's ready to dig in his heels on that second-term agenda the far-right's spent the last four years warning about

BY STEVE KORNACKI

President Obama’s entire first term record on gun control consisted of signing a bill that made it easier to carry firearms in national parks, and yet the NRA spent the last four years feverishly warning its members about the supposedly radical course he’d chart if he managed to win reelection.

Today, that fear will be realized when Obama unveils a comprehensive set of gun control proposals drawn up over the last month by Vice President Joe Biden. The president’s package is expected to include a renewed ban on assault weapons (an earlier version expired in 2004), limits on high-capacity magazines, universal background checks and an end to the gun show loophole, and new initiatives involving mental health and more police officers in schools. He’s also identified 19 executive orders that, among other things, will better coordinate the federal background check system and step up efforts to prosecute would-be gun purchasers who provide false information for their background checks.

Taken together, as the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker writes, Obama’s recommendations will amount to “the most comprehensive regulation of the firearms industry since 1968.”

The ’68 example is instructive however, in terms of recognizing the potential limits on what Obama is now trying to do now. That push, led by President Lyndon Johnson, gathered steam in the aftermath of the killings of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, but key elements were steadily watered down and stripped out as the bill made its way through Congress. The final product banned the sale of firearms to minors and by mail and required gun sellers to keep record of whom they were selling to – a far cry from what LBJ had initially set out to achieve.

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http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/obama_vs_the_nra/