US measures on gun control

The tameness of new measures shows just how powerless the president is to do anything about gun violence.

One would have thought that the massacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school was the final push the US needed to enact some sensible gun control measures. And that is undoubtedly what President Barack Obama wanted. He tasked his vice-president, Joe Biden, to come up with workable solutions to this issue. Thanks, however, to the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to gun ownership, and the ultra-powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), there are few concrete measures the president can take. What President Obama has instead proposed is a series of commonsensical measures, such as directing the police to trace the ownership of any guns used in a crime. The tameness of these measures shows just how powerless the president is to do anything about gun violence.

Even these lukewarm measures have stoked the ire of the NRA and the gun lobby. To pre-empt the possibility of any action being taken, the NRA released an advertisement accusing the president of hypocrisy for having armed protection for his daughters while plotting to take away everyone else’s guns. Not only is the ad misleading since President Obama is not about to announce a ban on guns, it can also be interpreted as stoking racial fears in an already divided country.

There are some actions President Obama could have asked Congress to take that would make sense and enjoy popular support. He could also propose closing the gun-show loophole, which allows people to purchase arms at gun shows without going through background checks. The biggest obstacle he faces is that the Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives and they have shown no interest in enacting gun control legislation. For now, the US will have to accept the status quo on this issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2013.