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Obama offers new gun control actions

The administration has failed to find support in Congress for its gun control proposals this year. The issue became a top one for President Barack Obama after a gunman killed 20 young children and six adults at a Connecticut school in December.

Obama has added two more executive actions to a list of 23 steps the White House determined Obama could take on his own to reduce gun violence.

Vice-President Joe Biden unveiled the new actions on Thursday at the White House.

One new policy will end a government practice that lets military weapons, sold or donated by the US to allies, be reimported into the US by private entities, where some may end up on the streets. The White House said the US has approved 250,000 of those guns to be reimported since 2005. Under the new policy, only museums and a few other entities like the government will be eligible to reimport military-grade firearms.

The Obama administration is also proposing a federal rule to stop those who would be ineligible to pass a background check from getting around the law by registering a gun to a corporation or trust. The new rule would require people associated with those entities, like beneficiaries and trustees, to undergo the same type of fingerprint-based background checks as individuals if they want to register guns.

Still out of reach for Obama are the steps that gun control advocates and the administration say could most effectively combat gun violence in the US, such as an assault weapons ban and fewer exceptions for background checks for individual sales. Only Congress can act on those fronts.

Efforts to address those issues died in the Senate amid opposition from the National Rifle Association gun lobby and most Republican senators.

These days, Obama mentions gun control far less often. And with immigration and pressing fiscal issues dominating Congress’ agenda, the prospects for reviving gun legislation appear negligible.

The NRA dismissed the administration’s latest moves on Thursday as misdirected.

“Requiring background checks for corporations and trusts does not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals,” the group’s Andrew Arulanandam said. “Prohibiting the re-importation of firearms into the US that were manufactured 50 or more years ago does not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals. This administration should get serious about prosecuting violent criminals who misuse guns and stop focusing its efforts on law-abiding gun owners.”

Biden also swore in Todd Jones, whose confirmation to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after six years of political fighting to fill that position was another of Obama’s priorities after the December shooting.