Amid gun lobby criticism, assault weapons reporting rule delayed

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC

The White House, facing fierce criticism from the gun lobby, has delayed approval of a proposed rule that federal law enforcement officials say could help them staunch the flow of U.S. assault rifles and other high powered weapons to Mexico’s drug cartels.

The proposed rule, announced by Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms acting director Kenneth Melson on Dec. 20, would require U.S. firearms dealers in four southwest border states to report multiple sales of long guns, such as semi-automatic assault rifles which frequently purchased by so-called “straw buyers” for the cartels. Melson had said he expected the proposed “emergency rule” would receive approval in early January 2011.

But the announced deadline date for White House approval, Jan. 5, has come and gone, leaving ATF officials bewildered and keenly disappointed. Some officials had expressed hopes that President Barack Obama might even address the issue during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night as a positive step the administration was taking to address the issue of gun violence.

Instead, Obama failed to discuss guns in his speech, and now some ATF officials are wondering whether the proposed emergency rule will take effect at all. One official with knowledge of the issue said the delay may relate questions raised by critics about ATF's legal authority to issue such a proposed rule on an emergency basis.



Read more: http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/26/5929361-amid-gun-lobby-criticism-assault-weapons-reporting-rule-delayed

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President Obama to address gun control soon, aides say

White House officials on Wednesday attempted to quell criticism that President Obama dodged a national debate over guns in his State of the Union address and announced that the president would address the issue soon.

But aides sidestepped questions about when Obama will talk about federal firearms policy or what he would say.

"I wouldn't rule out that at some point the president talks about the issues surrounding gun violence," Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said aboard Air Force One on the way to an event with Obama in Wisconsin. "I don't have a timetable or, obviously, what he would say."

As president, Obama has never delivered substantive remarks on gun policy, one of the most volatile and divisive domestic issues, out of fear of roiling swing voters in rural areas, the Midwest and the South.

But after 19 people were shot in Tucson on Jan. 8, gun-control groups and some lawmakers urged Obama to wade into the issue. Advocates for stricter gun laws expressed dismay that Obama avoided the topic in a national address delivered less than three weeks after the rampage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/26/AR2011012604765.html?hpid=topnews

[Lautremont]

1. Is "fierce criticism from the gun lobby" really that scary?

I mean, I know they have guns, but is that enough to cause Obama to wilt like a posy in a hailstorm?

[X_Digger]

2. Ask President Clinton..

"Just before the House vote (on the crime bill), Speaker Tom Foley and majority leader Dick Gephardt had made a last-ditch appeal to me to remove the assault weapons ban from the bill. They argued that many Democrats who represented closely divided districts had already...defied the NRA once on the Brady bill vote. They said that if we made them walk the plank again on the assault weapons ban, the overall bill might not pass, and that if it did, many Democrats who voted for it would not survive the election in November. Jack Brooks, the House Judiciary Committee chairman from Texas, told me the same thing...Jack was convinced that if we didn't drop the ban, the NRA would beat a lot of Democrats by terrifying gun owners....Foley, Gephardt, and Brooks were right and I was wrong. The price...would be heavy casualties among its defenders." (Pages 611-612)

"On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing eight Senate races and fifty-four House seats, the largest defeat for our party since 1946....The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had warned me this would happen. Foley was the first Speaker to be defeated in more than a century. Jack Brooks had supported the NRA for years and had led the fight against the assault weapons ban in the House, but as chairman of the Judiciary Committee he had voted for the overall crime bill even after the ban was put into it. The NRA was an unforgiving master: one strike and you're out. The gun lobby claimed to have defeated nineteen of the twenty-four members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage...." (Pages 629-630)

"One Saturday morning, I went to a diner in Manchester full of men who were deer hunters and NRA members. In impromptu remarks, I told them that I knew they had defeated their Democratic congressman, Dick Swett, in 1994 because he voted for the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. Several of them nodded in agreement." (Page 699)

--William J. Clinton, My Life

[safeinOhio]

3. That was 17 years ago

In the most recent elections a man that voted for the AWB and other anti-gun bills was elected governor of Ohio against a man that had an A+ from the NRA. Ohio is pretty much a rural state. There is Cleveland, Columbus and everything in between is Alabama.
This might not be a good time to introduce any kind of gun control, even a small change. One or two more shootings like Tucson and I'm afraid drastic restrictions will be demanded by the majority. We saw what happened after 9/11.

[Tejas]

4. We didn't have the internet 17 years ago.

17 years ago, Jim Zumbo might've only lost a few Outdoor Life subscribers. Much different now (as Zumbo found out in '07).

[Ter]

5. Everyone always says that

But it's false, we had a young internet in 1995. I was there, and it was a beautiful thing. No spam, no over-population, just paradise.

[Tejas]

7. Maybe, just maybe

they're right.

[Ter]

9. No, they are wrong

The vast majority of the population didn't have internet access in 1995, that is true. But saying it "didn't exist then" is not true. I had it in 1995, and I knew plenty of my BBS buddies had internet access in 1994, and a couple even in 1993.

[Tejas]

14. Quit dodging,

"But saying it "didn't exist then" is not true."

So, you posted on the DU in '94? Of course you didn't, so lose the dense act (if it's an act). I may have stretched a figure of speech past your limits, nut my point stands that citizens can (and do) have more impact due to greater capability to make an impact on the web, something that wasn't possible in 1994.

Again, Zumbo is/was an excellent example.

[Ter]

17. DU is not the internet

You said "we didn't have an internet 17 years ago". I politely told you that wasn't the case, and you apparently can't take this answer, even though true.

I really don't wanna argue, and like I said will certainly say that the vast majority didn't have access in 1995, but it ends there. It's a myth that there was no internet in 1995. It was young and beautiful, with no spam and total freedom.

[Ter]

19. Just found this by accident and though of this thread and had to post it

Today Show January 1994...What is the Internet??

[X_Digger]

8. I remember veronica, archie, gopher, muds, and irc.. *sniff*

Dialed into a VAX / VMS (or was it VM5?) system..

The real precursor to usenet that I remember was FidoNet. qwkreader for offline reading..

[X_Digger]

6. Yes, that was 17 years ago.. do you remember what happenned to gun sales in Dec 08- 2009?

Let's see.. change.gov has call for a new "assault weapon ban", which was copied over to whitehouse.gov..

What happens? They fly off the shelves faster than ever, over 14 million NICS checks in 2009- more than has ever been recorded before.

You can wish in one hand, and shit in the other.. we'll see which one fills up first.

[safeinOhio]

10. Pretty steady increase in checks

from 2006 to 2010 and a leveling off of increases in 2010. The increase from 2006 to 2007 was about the same as the increase from 2008 to 2009 with a large fall off in increase from 2009 to 2010.

Any correlation may be tenuous at the least. I don't think you can attribute it all to Obama. Cut backs in local government spending leading to big layoffs in LEOs may account for much of that along with fear of the growing number of unemployed and a failing economy. Economic indicators rose in 2010 and the rise in NICS falls.

[X_Digger]

11. "pretty steady"??

Year over year, Nov 08 was 500,000 more than 2007, compared to October's increase, which was 50,000 .. that's a 10x jump in year over year.

2008 was 1.5 million more than 2007, the single largest jump ever, year over year.

January 2009 - +300k year over year, compared to 2008- 50k
February 2009 - +240k year over year, compared to 2008- 107k
March 2009 - +300k year over year, compared to 2008- 65k
April 2009 - +285k year over year, compared to 2008- 100k
May 2009 - +137k year over year, compared to 2008- 85k

[safeinOhio]

12. How you look at it

2005 685,811 743,070 768,290 658,954 557,058 555,560 561,358 687,012 791,353 852,478 927,419 1,164,582 8,952,945
2006 775,518 820,679 845,219 700,373 626,270 616,097 631,156 833,070 919,487 970,030 1,045,194 1,253,840 10,036,933
2007 894,608 914,954 975,806 840,271 803,051 792,943 757,884 917,358 944,889 1,025,123 1,079,923 1,230,525 11,177,335
2008 942,556 1,021,130 1,040,863 940,961 886,183 819,891 891,224 956,872 973,003 1,183,279 1,529,635 1,523,426 12,709,023
2009 1,213,885 1,259,078 1,345,096 1,225,980 1,023,102 968,145 966,162 1,074,757 1,093,230 1,233,982 1,223,252 1,407,155 14,033,824
2010 1,119,229 1,243,211 1,300,100 1,233,761 1,016,876 1,005,876 1,069,792 1,089,374 1,145,798 1,368,184 1,296,223 1,521,192 14,409,616

increase of 1,140,402 from 06 to 07

increase of 1,304,801 08 to09

increase of 375.792 09 to 10

looks like the big story is the big decline last year. Why the large, almost as large as 2009, in 2007 and the really, really big decrease in 2010?

[X_Digger]

13. My guess re 2010? The President stomped on AG Holder & SoS Clinton..

If you'll remember, it was Feb/April of 2009 when those two piped up, then a month later, Gibbs, Napolitano, Pelosi, et al were pulling a Schultz about a new AWB. The number fit, since May 09 was when the trend started to slow.

This is the delta, year over year..

2006....1,083,988
2007....1,140,402
2008....1,531,688
2009....1,324,801
2010......375,792

[beevul]

16. Wasnt the previous yearly average...

Wasnt the previous yearly average around 4 million a year?

A spike to 14 million is significant no matter how one spins it.

[1896educational]

15. delayed, but not dead

[cynzke]

18. Gun Control vs Drug Abuse!

So let me get this straight, the gun lobby would prefer that the Mexican Cartel be well armed so they can conduct their drug trade, import drugs into this country, than to lose profits resulting from a cross boarder gun ban. Hey citizen taxpayers, we should all put up with increased drug trafficking, related crimes (pushers selling to your kids) and the resulting resources and expenditures required to battle these activities, so it won't cut into the profits of the gun Mfgs. See where we stand in priorities.