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White House weighs broad gun-control agenda in wake of Newtown shootings

By Philip Rucker,January 05, 2013

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But Biden signaled to those involved in the policy discussions that the White House is not afraid of taking on the NRA, the nation’s largest gun rights group. At the Dec. 20 meeting, according to Stanek, when one law enforcement leader suggested focusing on only the most popular proposals, Biden responded: “Look, what I’m asking you for is your candid opinion and ideas about extreme gun violence. Leave the politics to the president. That’s our job with Congress.”

NRA officials declined a request for comment. In response to the shooting in Newtown, Wayne LaPierre, the group’s executive vice president, called for installing armed police officers in every school.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre said at a news conference Dec. 21.

One potential strategy would be to win support for specific measures from interest groups that are normally aligned with the NRA, according to one person who works closely with the administration on gun-related issues and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

For instance, this person suggested, Wal-Mart and other major gun retailers may have an incentive to support closing a loophole that allows people to bypass background checks if they purchase firearms at gun shows or through other types of private sales. That could result in more people buying guns in retail stores.

Timing is imperative

Obama’s advisers have calculated that the longer they wait, the more distance there is from the Newtown massacre and the greater the risk that the bipartisan political will to tackle gun violence will dissipate.

“This is not something that I will be putting off,” Obama said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview broadcast last Sunday.

At the White House meeting, Stanek said, “the vice president indicated that there was a very short timeline for him to get back to the president with his recommendations because the American public has a short memory.”

Already, three weeks after the Newtown shooting, gun-control advocates are growing impatient with a legislative process that is just beginning.

“As we get involved in these ad nauseam debates over the Second Amendment, our children are still at risk,” said Jon Adler, national president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. “Debating is not the action verb we need to protect our children.”

With the start of the 113th Congress last week, several lawmakers filed bills to address gun violence. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who co-wrote a 1994 assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004, plans to introduce legislation this month that would ban the sale or manufacture of about 120 firearms, including semiautomatic rifles and military-style handguns, as well as ammunition magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.

The expired federal assault-weapons ban prohibited the manufacturing of 19 models of semiautomatic guns classified as assault weapons, including certain rifles and shot guns. The law also banned ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. But it did not ban the sale of previously manufactured assault weapons or high-capacity magazines.

Since the law’s sunset, efforts in Congress over the past decade to reinstate the ban have faced stiff opposition from the NRA and the firearms industry and have never passed.

Adler, who has submitted recommendations to Biden’s group, said he has told administration officials that they need to pursue multiple measures to increase their chances of success.

“We can’t put all our protection-effort eggs in one basket with one piece of legislation,” he said. “We’ve got to do more than that.”

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