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Subscribe to RSSPresident Obama was in Minneapolis- a city once known for a double digit murder rate - to promote his plan on curbing gun violence. He asked supporters to call on Congress to act. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.
Declaring “we're not going to wait until the next Newtown,” President Barack Obama appealed directly to the American public on Monday to pressure reluctant lawmakers in Congress to move forward with gun control legislation.
Obama flew to Minneapolis, Minn., to urge constituents to contact their representatives and press for a package of new gun laws, including a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, universal background checks for gun buyers and new rules targeting gun traffickers.
“We don’t have to agree on everything to agree it’s time to do something,” Obama said, standing in front of a group of uniformed law enforcement officers.
Obama’s campaign-like strategy is designed to maintain a sense of urgency for gun control measures in the wake of the elementary school shootings in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 elementary school children and 6 adults.
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But the president conceded Monday that his plans already face steep hurdles in Congress.
"Changing the status quo is never easy," Obama said. "This will be no exception.”
Obama’s remarks in Minneapolis reflected the political realities on Capitol Hill, where Democratic leadership aides privately say an assault weapons ban has little chance of passing. The fight will instead center on universal background checks and, some Democrats hope, high capacity magazines.
On Monday, Obama labeled universal background checks as “commonsense” and “smart” reforms that would earn bipartisan support.
“There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to get that done,” he said.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks about his gun violence proposals, Monday, Feb. 4, 2013, at the Minneapolis Police Department's Special Operations Center in Minneapolis, where he outlined his plan before law enforcement personnel.
There’s some evidence of that: While the National Rifle Association says it opposes universal background checks, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has been working with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and other Democrats to craft background check legislation.
For the politically difficult elements of his proposals – the bans on weapons and magazines – Obama set a more modest goal: “That deserves a vote in Congress,” he said.
That’s about the extent of what Senate Democratic aides say they can muster. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who earned a “B” grade from the National Rifle Association, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he plans to allow the Senate Judiciary Committee to start writing a gun bill. If it doesn’t initially include the ban, senators could try to add it later in the process, as an amendment on the Senate floor.
Reid has no plans to introduce his own gun bill, a senior Democratic aide said Monday, instead leaving that process to the Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Still, aides acknowledged, including a gun ban in the overall package could prevent other, more popular gun regulations from passing Congress.
Democratic aides say Leahy hasn’t yet decided exactly what he’ll include in the bill, though he’s introduced a measure that would crack down on people who illegally buy guns to give or sell to others. Before the committee starts writing a bill, planned for later in February, there will be at least two more hearings – one this week in the Constitution Subcommittee and another full committee hearing after that.
Congress held its first hearings on gun control late last month, where National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre clashed with Democratic senators and emerged in opposition to universal background checks.
Obama referred to lobbyists like LaPierre in his remarks, though he didn’t mention the longtime gun advocate by name. He urged Americans to tell Congress if he didn’t speak for them.
“If we've got lobbyists in Washington claiming to speak for gun owners saying something different, we've got to go to the source,” Obama said. “We cannot allow those filters to get in the way of common sense… keep the pressure on your member of Congress to do the right thing.”
Speaking at the Minneapolis Police Department's Special Operations Center in Minneapolis, President Obama, says, "We don't have to agree on everything to agree it's time to do something." Watch his entire speech.
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ok now,,,all you criminals line up for your background checks!,,,please, pretty please,,,awww c'mon guys...give me an f'ing break.
You guys miss the point entirely. If criminals won't submit to background checks, they won't be able to buy guns.
Spoken like the true idiot you are.................
They won't be able to by them legally, how many criminals and gang bangers do you think buy their guns legally? I would bet very few if any. Bought from some kid on a corner that stole it or is the 10th person in the line that had the stolen weapon. Won't work, it would be nice if it would, but it won't.
How about a budget?
Typical democrat... He swears to uphold and defend the Constitution, and then tries to limit our rights to bear arms. He is either stupid and cannot understand what 'shall not be infringed' means, or he is against the Constitution and a traitor.
In any case the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any law, regulation or executive order that the imbecile Obama wants should be ignored by patriots and Americans. Obama and many democrats are just plain traitors. We need to be rid of such scum! VOTE them out of office. Treat democrats like the traitors they are!
What next he will want to seize property from those that own it and give it to his party supporters? Such Hitler like tactics...
Heil Obama!
The problem is if you give gun-grabbers an inch, they try and take the whole field. They also continue to confuse law-abiding citizens with criminals and the mentally ill. Gun control advocates insist on all these measures which simply will not affect those who are actually committing the crimes, but will infringe on the liberties of those who are already obeying the law. I don't understand why that is such a difficult concept for gun control advocates to grasp. Additional gun regulations simply won't affect crime, and they won't affect the ability of a deranged psychotic from inflicting lethal harm whenever they choose. No matter how much a person may hate guns, simple logic and rationality brings us to the conclusion, as Joe Biden recently stated, that additional gun control won't affect crime. So since gun control legislation won't affect crime, what is the point of gun control legislation?
The real focus should be on mental health, in particular, in the high volume of mind-altering drugs being prescribed. Every single shooter in every single mass shooting for the past 20 years has been on these mind altering prescription drugs. Since we've always had guns, and since we've had semi-automatics for over 100 years, but the massive increase in these prescription drugs has occurred in the last 20 years, and since that has been going on we've had mass shootings, does it not logically follow that perhaps it would make more sense to examine what is going on there vs. finding additional ways to limit what firearms law-abiding citizens can buy for their personal protection or recreation?
"Those who trade liberty for security have neither." ~ John Adams
64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
Assault is a behavior, not a device.
The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
We must fear our government, not terrorists thousands of miles away....
Excellent post
Blah blah blah, copy and paste the same tired points over and over again.
Blah, blah, blah...............the same rantings of an idiot.
Lee-3014256
Cameron Ford
When you guys (god forbid) get robbed, defend yourselves and family with a butter knife. Hopefully the bad guy is scared of that... Or, maybe you can use your undefined ninja skills. Losers...
Victor-1304988
Thanks, glad to see not everyone on here is sheeple...
Just deflecting. 25 million unemployed, underemployed or no longer looking. 1 in 6 living in poverty, an all time high. Higher percentage of people collecting Food stamps than ever before. $16.5 trillion debt, $1+ trillion annual deficit. Lowest percentage of households paying federal income tax in decades. Sorry kids, the President doesn't seem to care.
This political feel good posturing is only inflaming the situation, polarizing the sides further and really negating meaningful discussions from both sides in order to reach solid solutions both can live with.
Obama is a lying Son of a Bit*h. He IS a Petty Dictator and an enemy of Liberty.
Meanwhile the American economy SUCKS and millions are without jobs.The A$$ Clown in Chief is nothing but a piece of sh*t.
Get out of my country if you hate him so much.
Go back to Kenya with him if you love him so much
Cameron- been reading all of your posts....
Get on your knees and go blow Obama already.
You know you want it.
Are you kidding me? Does Obama really think his bro's are going to turn in their guns? Just goes to show you,He has no F-ing brains.
fiestyredhead and others must work for obama's legacy pac. if you want to hopefully avert another mass shooting address mental health, acting before the violence occurs and the culture of violence in our society.
Dumb legislation from dumb politicians.
Lets not do anything about the illegal guns on the street. Lets just make it harder for law abiding citizens to get them. Great logic.
Most crime in America is committed by blacks and other people of color!
Why don't we just get rid of all of them! Same logic as gun control!
is obama threatening us? He's the best reason to keep your guns and he knows it. This is just the crisis of the day. The longer he makes this the most important issue he doesn't have to talk about his complete failures at the rest of the country's problems
I'm not commenting on the overall push the president is making -- or on gun control in general, but there's something specifically about the argument, “If there's even one thing we can do, if there's just one life we can save, we've got an obligation to try,” that doesn't resonate with me. There are probably thousands of things the government could do to save many lives, but choose not to. We could require that all cars have alcohol breathalyzers built into the ignition. That change would save many lives -- are we obligated to try it? We could ban physicians from wearing ties that carry dangerous bacteria in the hospital. That change would save many lives -- are we obligated to try it? We could ban cigarettes so children are not exposed to second-hand smoke, make it illegal to feed kids food that lead to obesity and diabetes, bar private homes from having swimming pools, make it mandatory for all adults to get flu shots so they don't pass the virus on to children, and so many other things. If the president was truly concerned primarily with saving the lives of children as he states, then I can think of dozens of things that would save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives each year, not "just one". Would he really consider implementing those changes? Again, I'm not commenting one gun control here. I'm just saying if we find his "save just one" argument valid, then there are MANY common sense things we could be doing now if we were serious about making sure children turn into adults.
There is not enough words for me to comment on how stupid obama is!
Dems are back to pandering to the far left. That should safely bring their poll numbers back down below 50% and they will forego any dream to elect more moderate supreme court justices, forego environmental protection, forego unnecessary wars. Goodbye Roe vs Wade. But at least we will have only 10 magazine clips instead of 20. I guess it's worth it.
Just got an email from EBAY They want people to write their senators because Senator Dick Durbin D-IL is proposing new taxes. He has proposed that states collect taxes from internet purchases. This bill is coming up this year and your input is needed. For many of us who use EAY, this is like taxing our yard sale. Do you see how this Democrat from a broke state can create a new tax obligation for the whole country if he gets his way? These broke , corrupt, and mis-managed states are about to drag the rest of us down. I don't mean this just against the Democrats...This is just wrong for the rest of the states ,just because this guy is looking for more money. Off topic but I thought you should know what EBAY is sending out today. I am no longer allowed to post on Yahoo, Blocked because of posts like this. So if someone can get this out on Yahoo pages, the country needs to know who is sponsoring this.
Handguns are the real problem but we'll ban the so called Assault weapons which kill fewer people in this country than even baseball bats. Nothing will change, the Newtown shooter could have done what he did with the two pistols he carried. The media wants everyone to be scared of the big black guns and its working. The criminals will still have whatever weapons they desire. If someone wants to kill they will find a way , the biggest mass murders in our history weren't committed with Assault weapons were they.
Bo-Dumbo went skeet shooting this week-end!!
I wonder if Bo-Dumbo has the required paper work for those guns? Hmmmmmmmm?
i bet that most of the officers standing behind him wanted to pull a gun and shoot him dead right then and there
OBAMA = Sh*t
BARRY is such a wuss,,,kicking it to Congress instead of manning up! Make a dang decision and go with it,,he knows this is doomed and he will just blame the GOP and NRA.
Um, it's up to congress to make the laws. Sounds like someone skipped 7th grade history class.
why cant the pres stay in washington and work on doing something to help jobs and the economy instead of flying all over beating a dead horse. probably because he onlky knows how to campaign, not how to govern or lead.
Look at the history of gun control, see what the Mexican citizens are faced with today because of government gun control. Another example of how Hitler got his start. The current laws need inforced, no reason to impose more laws on those who already abide by them, what next, knife contol???