O'Malley takes stand on gun control.NH Union Leader

Democrat Martin O’Malley promised on Tuesday to take several executive actions on gun control if elected president, including abandoning a law that shields gun dealers and manufacturers from lawsuits by victims of gun violence or their families.

O’Malley unveiled his seven-point plan for a unilateral presidential initiative at a town meeting in Keene on the same day that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton released a new television ad calling for stronger background checks for gun sales.

Hoping to seize a signature issue, O’Malley told Union Leader editors and reporters prior to his Keene appearance that Clinton is late to the issue and her proposals don’t go far enough. His other opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, voted against background checks in the past.

“I was leading on this issue in 2003 and I am the only one who ever got comprehensive legislation passed,” O’Malley said, referring to his gubernatorial experience. “I have challenged Clinton and Sanders to help me forge a new consensus on common-sense legislation.”

Congress has not passed any changes to federal firearms legislation since early 2008. While many of the changes O’Malley is proposing would require legislation be passed and signed into law, there are things the President could do independently, he said.

“A bill was pushed through Congress that gave immunity to gun manufacturers. That has been challenged in court and our Justice Department would defend it,” he said. “I would direct our Justice Department to no longer defend the constitutionality of that statute.”

O’Malley said he would also require that gun manufacturers seeking federal contracts assign hidden serial numbers to firearms that can’t be erased, and he would ban so-called “cop-killer” ammunition, which is coated to penetrate hard surfaces.

He would prevent anyone convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a weapon; direct law enforcement agencies to follow up on failed gun purchase attempts; subject licensed firearm dealers to tougher oversight; and issue new safety guidelines for storing guns in homes.

O’Malley said executive action would not be intended to replace legislation, but to supplement it. “I don’t mean for any of these actions to be an excuse for us to not forge a new consensus on a number of things the vast majority of both parties support, including a ban on the sale of assault weapons and background checks,” he said.

The latest polls show Clinton and Sanders in a statistical dead heat among New Hampshire primary voters (48 percent to 45 percent), with O’Malley stuck in single digits, now at 3 percent.

“I just keep going,” he said. “One of the things I learned about New Hampshire long ago is that people here are not intimidated by polls or what the pundits in Washington tell them ... The inevitable frontrunner is always inevitable until the people of New Hampshire and Iowa make their preferences known.”

O’Malley has been frustrated by the lack of debates and the limited exposure he was able to receive in the only debate so far on CNN, claiming producers for the network told him that he and the other lower-tier candidates would have to compete for more than 20 percent of all questions because the majority were going to Clinton and Sanders.

Now that former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb have dropped out of the race, and Vice President Joe Biden has decided not to run, O’Malley thinks his prospects have brightened.

“In this next debate, I think I will not have to scrap and claw so much for equal time,” he said, referring to the next Democratic encounter scheduled for Nov. 14, at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, to air on CBS.

O’Malley intends to step up his attempts to compare and contrast himself with Clinton in the run-up to that debate, citing issues like the Keystone XL Pipeline and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in addition to gun control.

“I came out against the Keystone pipeline about eight months to a year ago because I don’t believe it is in the nation’s interest,” he said. “Clinton flipped on it days before the first debate.”

Clinton praised the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership while serving as secretary of state, later said she would reserve judgment until the deal was finalized, and in early October announced that she opposes the deal.

“I was against it about a year ago,” he said. “In fact, I am opposed to any secret trade deals we are not allowed to read, that lower standards for workers and lower standards for the environment.”

The candidate quoted Thomas Jefferson in summing up his political philosophy: “In matters of fashion, you should swim with the current, but in matters of principle, you should stand like a rock.”

http://www.unionleader.com/OMalley-takes-stand-on-gun-control