| White House Will Require Background Checks at Gun Shows and Online - ABC
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@ABC Sign our petition thanking President Obama for taking executive action that will make it harder for criminals and the dangerously mentally ill to get their hands on guns. 
Thank President Obama for his leadership on the issue of gun violence prevention. What a terrific start to 2016. But we're just getting started. The President Speaks on Recommendations to Reduce Gun Violence |
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Why the President is taking action today to reduce gun violence:
We called him the custodian of all living things. If an ant had crawled its way into our kitchen, he'd gently pick it up and carry it out outside to rejoin its family. If he saw a classmate sitting alone, he'd be the first to provide company and comfort. At 7 years old, he cared, he listened, and he loved more deeply than many adults I know.
On December 14, 2012, he was killed by a man with a gun. My son Daniel was one of the 26 lives taken from us at the hands of a mass shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Since that day, President Obama promised us that he would use every tool available to him to spare another family the overwhelming pain of losing a child in such a horrific way. Today, he is taking additional steps to reduce gun violence.
Watch his announcement at 11:40 a.m. ET to learn more about the executive action he's taking today.
But we can do more than we've done since that day in Newtown. Today, the President is doing what is in his power to reduce the unspeakable violence that stole our son from us.
So, please, watch what the President has to say today.
Daniel was a protector of living things. If we can take just one action that will prevent another child from dying the way he did, then we will do honor to the way he lived his life.
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| Gun Manufacturers Thrilled With Obama's Gun Control Plan |
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| "Every Time I Think About Those Kids It Gets Me Mad": Obama Tears Up as He Orders New Gun Control |
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7 Myths About Gun Violence in America, Debunked
On live television Thursday evening, President Barack Obama will hold a town hall meeting about gun violence. He will take questions from participants who support tighter gun laws and from others who want fewer restrictions on guns. It's a prime-time moment for separating fact from fiction—so here's a shortlist, with the data to back it up. Review it, tack it to your wall, and feel free to share it with anyone who thinks the gun debate is just a matter of defending constitutional freedom:
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What Congress owes the families of Newtown:For three years, Congress has failed the families of Newtown and victims of gun violence across the country.
While Congress, bitterly divided over partisan politics, has been stalled on this issue, the rest of America has continued to grieve. Countless families have felt the pain and heartache of losing a loved one to gun violence -- the same horrifying sting felt by those 26 families in Newtown on December 14, 2012.
I represent those families in Congress. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't witness their pain, or share their utter bewilderment in our failure to do something about it.
But we also remember the strength and resiliency of the Newtown community. We remember the teachers who protected those kids, who died shielding them with their bodies. We remember the first responders who rushed in to help. And we remember the millions of acts of kindness and gifts and phone calls that came in from the rest of the world.
This is the spirit behind President Obama's executive actions to reduce gun violence. He is doing what he can to prevent future gun violence because he knows that, as Americans, we cannot just close our eyes and blindly accept this as the status quo -- especially when it threatens the safety of our children.
Learn more about President Obama's commonsense proposals to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
Some of my colleagues in Congress have already raised their objections over these steps. Here's my message to them: Stop listening to the gun lobby. If they listened to gun owners instead, the vast majority of whom support sensible steps to keep guns out of the wrong hands, this debate would be over already.
We would have already acted. We would have passed universal background check legislation. We would have made straw purchasing and gun trafficking federal crimes to give law enforcement the tools to combat the flood of illegal weapons across state lines. We would have passed a ban on high-capacity magazines. We would have made it impossible for those on the FBI's terror watch list to purchase a deadly firearm. Instead, we've done nothing.
We should be listening to victims and families across the country who have been calling on us to act and do what we can to make the world safer for their children.
I'm proud to stand with President Obama on the actions he's taking to prevent gun violence. If you want to learn more, make sure to tune in to CNN tonight at 8:00pm ET, where President Obama will discuss the issue and take questions at a live town hall event.
But the President can only do so much -- it's up to Congress to do more. We must stand up to the gun lobby and do we what we can to prevent what happened in Newtown from ever happening again.
What greater responsibility do we have?
Thank you,
Chris Murphy
U.S. Senator
Cheshire, Connecticut
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Thank President Obama for closing these gun loopholes:
This is an extraordinary victory for our movement, and one that will save lives.
Please sign our card thanking President Obama for taking executive action to help close loopholes that let dangerous people get guns without background checks.
When Congress failed to take action to close these loopholes after the tragedy in Newtown, the team at Americans for Responsible Solutions -- backed by almost one million Americans like you -- set to work with President Obama, Vice President Biden, and the rest of the administration to find a way to make our communities safer, even if Congress wouldn't cooperate.
Today we will see the results of our tireless work and your dedicated support. Specifically, President Obama will:
- Clarify what defines a gun dealer, so criminal background checks will be required on more sales at gun shows, online, and elsewhere, and step up enforcement on those who ignore the law.
- Strengthen the background check system by increasing staff, introducing new technology, and encouraging states to include needed records.
- Require federally licensed gun dealers to report lost or stolen guns, which will help reduce the illegal gun trade.
- Call for a new increase in mental health funding and resources.
Because it will require many more gun sales to be covered by a criminal background check, these executive actions are the biggest victory for our federal gun laws since the Brady Bill.
Nearly 90% of Americans continue to support criminal background checks for all gun sales. But we know that the gun lobby and its allies in Congress won't be happy with President Obama taking action to make communities safer from gun violence -- no matter how few people agree with their views. That's why it's important for us to thank President Obama for closing these loopholes to let him know that we stand with him.
Add your name to our card to President Obama thanking him for helping to save lives from gun violence with today's executive actions.
Our country has a gun violence crisis, but today's victory is an important step to make communities safer from gun violence.
There is nothing we cannot accomplish when we stand together.
Sincerely,
Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly
Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC
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Pass Bruno's Law To Amend Current Animal Cruelty Laws to Make Shooting a Domestic Animal to Euthanize it a Felony in NH.
On a bright morning five years ago today:
The New Year is a time of optimism and new commitments. For me, it's a very powerful time: on January 8th, I think about how close I came to losing my life on a bright January morning five years ago, when a would-be assassin opened fire on me and my constituents, injuring 12 others and taking the lives of six.
Even though I was shot in the head from three feet away, somehow I survived. And I made a decision that my new life would be lived as my old life was: in service of our country. One thing that means for me today is using my second chance to do everything I can to make this great country safer from the kind of gun violence that took the lives of those around me, and changed others', and mine, forever.
Instead of focusing on what I cannot do, I've tried to live without limits. I've set myself tougher and tougher goals. I've learned and delivered speeches. I jumped out of an airplane. I spent the night on one of our United States Navy's aircraft carriers, the USS Carl Vinson. I've taken my French horn out of its case for the first time in years. This November, I rode 40 miles in Tucson's annual charity bike ride, El Tour de Tucson.
And along with my husband Mark Kelly, I have fought to make sure our leaders finally do something to save the lives of the 33 Americans who are murdered with a gun every day.
Today, five years after I was shot, we are making progress. As Congress refuses to act, leaders in the states are embracing commonsense change that keeps guns out of the wrong hands.
This week, we made even more. In the face of Congress' inaction in addressing our country's gun violence crisis, President Obama announced his administration is acting to significantly narrow the loopholes that let people buy guns without a background check. It is the right, responsible thing to do.
The president's reasonable proposal addresses a lethal problem: People in the business of selling guns avoid the current requirement to conduct background checks on their potential buyers by claiming not to be gun dealers, who are required under the law to do background checks.
Go to a gun show, for example, and in the booth right next to these licensed gun dealers whose customers have to undergo a background check you will see people who operate outside of the rules, selling dozens or hundreds of the same guns each year without a background check because they can.
The steps announced earlier this week will narrow those gaps by requiring anyone who sells a significant number of guns or operates like a commercial dealer to get a license and require their buyers to pass a criminal background check. Truly private sales, like simply selling a gun to a neighbor or a friend, will not be affected. But millions of firearms transactions that currently happen with no questions asked will now be subject to a background check.
The president's proposal makes another key improvement: it addresses the weakness in the background check system that allowed a dangerous man to buy a gun and murder nine innocent people in a Charleston, South Carolina church. It does this by increasing the number of background-check examiners by 50 percent, overhauling the system itself, and revealing which states do and don't report essential background check records to the FBI.
Other important provisions will require gun dealers to report lost and stolen guns, making it easier for law enforcement to crack down on the illegal gun trade, and to grow investment in gun safety technology and mental health treatment. This is just common sense.
Almost three years ago, when a minority of United States Senators caved to their fear of the corporate gun lobby and blocked sensible, bipartisan background checks legislation, I said that those Senators had failed their constituents, and with every preventable gun death, made shame their legacy.
Many of those same Senators, along with a lot of other elected officials and other candidates for president, will be quick to haul out the talking points the gun lobbyists in Washington gave them and attack the president's reasonable action.
They will warn of dire consequences.
They will willfully spread misinformation.
The truth is this: These new steps will hurt no one, but they will protect many.
Around mile 32 of the bike ride I did this November, I almost gave up. I'm mostly paralyzed on my right side, and even though I'd been training for months, my body was tired and it was hard to keep going. But I remembered my goal. I had a team of friends and supporters with me, so we just kept pedaling together. And then we crossed the finish line.
Reducing the number of Americans murdered or injured by guns is also not easy. Like I always say: it's a long, hard haul.
But we cannot falter now, and we cannot wait for a Congress in the gun lobby's grip to prevent some of the 12,000 gun murders that happen in our country every year.
That's why I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with other responsible gun owners, with moms and teachers, with law enforcement, with veterans, and with the president in support of commonsense change that makes our country a safer place to live.
- Gabby Giffords
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This week, we celebrated our first big victory of
2016.
President Obama took a number of executive actions to prevent gun violence – including cracking down on people selling large numbers of guns without performing background checks. Thanks to this historic action, an additional tens of thousands of gun sales each year will now be required to undergo criminal background checks.
Click here to sign a petition thanking President Obama for taking this important step in the fight against gun violence.
The President's actions will enforce our gun laws in a number of ways, including empowering prosecutors to go after people who profit by selling guns to dangerous individuals – gun sellers like a Florida man who sold $20,000 worth of guns to a convicted felon.
But the NRA and their allies are already gearing up to block this important progress.
The NRA likes to talk about enforcing existing gun laws rather than passing stronger ones – while actually working to defund and block law enforcement efforts to fight crime. We know that we need to do both to keep our communities safe. President Obama is enforcing the laws already on the books – and we'll keep fighting for stronger gun laws that will keep weapons out of dangerous hands.
Click here to sign the petition to thank President Obama for standing up for common-sense gun laws, and protecting our communities from violence.
Thanks for taking action,
Colin Goddard
-------------------------------------President Obama took a number of executive actions to prevent gun violence – including cracking down on people selling large numbers of guns without performing background checks. Thanks to this historic action, an additional tens of thousands of gun sales each year will now be required to undergo criminal background checks.
Click here to sign a petition thanking President Obama for taking this important step in the fight against gun violence.
The President's actions will enforce our gun laws in a number of ways, including empowering prosecutors to go after people who profit by selling guns to dangerous individuals – gun sellers like a Florida man who sold $20,000 worth of guns to a convicted felon.
But the NRA and their allies are already gearing up to block this important progress.
The NRA likes to talk about enforcing existing gun laws rather than passing stronger ones – while actually working to defund and block law enforcement efforts to fight crime. We know that we need to do both to keep our communities safe. President Obama is enforcing the laws already on the books – and we'll keep fighting for stronger gun laws that will keep weapons out of dangerous hands.
Click here to sign the petition to thank President Obama for standing up for common-sense gun laws, and protecting our communities from violence.
Thanks for taking action,
Colin Goddard
What The NRA’s Lobbyist Said On Fox News, After Boycotting President’s Gun Violence Town Hall.
After declining an invitation to participate in CNN’s town hall discussion on gun violence with President Obama on Thursday, the National Rifle Association sent its top lobbyist, Chris W. Cox, to Fox News to defend the decision and explain the organization’s opposition to the administration’s executive actions and legislative proposals.
Cox defended the NRA’s refusal to join the president for CNN’s forum, calling it “an attempt to distract the American people away from his failed policies.” Noting that his organization was only offered the chance to ask Obama one thing, he told The Kelly File host Megyn Kelly that he would rather appear on her show “than sit through a lecture and get one opportunity to ask a pre-screened question.”
He then attempted to justify ignoring the forum by pointing to terrorism. “This president is creating an illusion that he is doing something to keep people safe,” Cox said. “He needs to do that because his policies failed miserably. We saw that materialize itself in San Bernardino when we had a terrorist attack. This president didn’t use it as an opportunity to unite this country. He didn’t use it as an opportunity to lay out a plan to defeat terrorism. He used it as an opportunity to impose more gun control on law-abiding Americans.”
The Fox News anchor then asked about Obama’s concerns about the gun show loophole and the fact that “people have exploited it to avoid background checks and sometimes those guns have would up being used in murders.”
“Megyn, the San Bernardino murderer has something in common with the Santa Barbara murderer, and the Tucson murderer, and the Aurora murderer, and the Chattanooga, the Charleston, the Southern Virginia…” Cox responded, “all of them went through President Obama’s background check. And every one of them passed. Every one of those murderers passed this background check.” In fact the shooters in San Bernadino allegedly got the guns from a straw purchaser and did not undergo a background check.
Cox then claimed that just 0.7 percent of criminals get their guns through gun shows. That statistic, often cited by gun-rights advocates, comes from a November 2001 Department of Justice report, which found that among state inmates serving time in 1997, 0.7 percent has obtained the gun at a gun show, up from 0.6 percent in 1991. Given that the Brady Bill, which required background checks for most other types of gun purchases, did not go into effect until 1994, it is likely that many of their crimes in this 19-year-old statistic occurred before there were any background checks at all.
Finally, Cox argued that the Obama administration has failed to adequately prosecute gun crime. “He has overseen a 40 percent decrease,” Cox argued, “in prosecution of criminal misuse of firearms.”
But a tweet from the NRA’s own twitter feed this week would seem to explain the decrease in gun crime prosecutions. “Crime is down,” the group noted on Monday. Indeed NRA News host Cam Edwards tweeted on Tuesday that “Obama has still not mentioned the fact that violent crime has been cut almost in half over past 20 years.” If violent crime is falling, it makes sense that there would be fewer gun crime prosecutions. Of course, the period mostly coincides with the passage of the Brady Bill.
Even Kelly’s fellow FNC host, Brian Kilmeade slammed Cox on Friday morning for his unwillingness to participate in the CNN Town Hall or even meet with the President, saying on Fox & Friends that the NRA lobbyist “should have shown up.” “Of course, you’re not going to agree with the president. You got to go. Show up. Give your point of view and run to a camera and tell us how the president was or wasn’t listening.”
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Recently, it came to the attention of the people of Berlin NH that a dog named Bruno had been brutally shot and left for dead in the woods by his owner, a local Berlin man. Bruno was shot multiple times and left to suffer alone. Bruno's body was discovered by another local, who called the police. The Berlin Police Department is investigating this heinous act, but is seems unlikely they will be pressing any charges.
During an interview performed by WMUR News, the officer speaking on behalf of the Berlin PD, stated that the present legal statute on animal cruelty is not specific as to the legality of this terrible act. It states other acts, such as whipping an animal are illegal, but leaves a gray area as to shooting one to death. Our goal is to get the State of New Hampshire to make it a Class B Felony for an animal to be killed in the manner Bruno was.
To bring an animal into the woods, shoot them multiple times on various party of their body, then leave them there in the forest to die alone and afraid is CRUEL. His owner had several other options available to him that he chose to ignore. New Hampshire must make wording of animal cruelty law clear, it must be enforced and it must outline what sort of punishment any law breaker can expect to receive. We believe that cruelty to animals must be made a felony so that never again will a person get away with murdering a defenseless animal.
No living thing deserves Bruno's fate. By signing this petition, we can make change. We can bring an amendment before the State Legislature for vote, and maybe we can save a life. Even one would be worth it. I'm from Berlin, and I still live in NH. Please, don't let this beautiful state be one that let's those who are cruel to animals get away with it. The animals deserve better than that.
My gun violence story could become your gun violence story.
On Monday, President Obama announced several executive actions to reduce gun violence. Conservative politicians and pundits had a lot to say, but it's time to hear from those who have had their lives shattered by Congressional inaction on gun safety. Read the full transcript below.
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LUCY MCBATH: Having stood there on the stage with President Obama yesterday was surreal, very, very surreal and very very profound for me because I felt like I was finishing the work of my father and that I too would be able to create and stimulate some wonderful change for this country that was going to save lives and that that would be my son's legacy.
SANDY PHILLIPS: Our daughter, Jessica Redfield Ghawi, was killed in the Aurora theater massacre.
PATRICIA MAISCH: It look me seeing six people dead on the sidewalk, eyes open, mouths gaping, fingers curled before I said to myself, 'It's time for you to do something.'
MCBATH: I'm the mother of a young man that was shot and killed in Jacksonville, Florida.
NICOLE HOCKLEY: I was never involved in gun violence prevention until I lost my six year old son, Dylan, at Sandy Hook school.
BARBARA PARKER: Our daughter Alison was murdered on August the 26th, 2015 on live television.
PHILLIPS: Obama's executive actions that he's taking are so welcomed. I think we were all very proud that he did something when Congress wouldn't, that he stood up when Congress wont.
MAISCH: President Obama has taken this action because Congress refuses to get out of the grip of the NRA.
PARKER: Fifty years ago or even 30 years ago, the NRA was not this kind of organization. It promoted safety and sensible use of guns.
MCBATH: If our legislators and not willing to be accountable to citizens of the United States in keeping them safe so that we're not in fear of being gunned-downed, then what else can he do?
PHILLIPS: For the people in the GOP, it's all about money and it's all about being indebted to the gun lobby. And for the President and for us, it's about blood.
ANDY PARKER: I can't think of any reasonable person that would object to trying to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
MCBATH: Unless we move forward and enact safer gun laws in many different measures, my story can easily become your story.
