Jan. 11--On Thursday evening, Barack Obama used the bully pulpit of the presidency to raise awareness about gun violence and ways to address it. Skeptics who tuned in to the CNN town hall at George Mason University may have been reassured by his words. But the obvious reason he was talking directly to citizens about this topic is that there isn't a whole lot else he can do.
With Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, Obama has no hope of getting gun control legislation approved. In December, the Senate voted down a bill to bar gun sales to anyone on the federal terrorism watch list. After the 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Conn., it rejected a bill to require background checks for all firearm purchases.
So on Monday, the administration announced several steps it would take using executive authority to address the problem -- primarily by striving to make it harder for people who are forbidden to own guns to get them. They are small changes, but worth trying.
One is a crackdown on sellers who do a regular business selling guns but don't obtain licenses to operate as federal firearms dealers -- and therefore don't have to do background checks. This is a huge loophole for those rendered ineligible because they have criminal records or are mentally unfit.
Hobbyists and collectors who make occasional sales are not required to get licenses, but those "engaged in the business" are. Yet a study by Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that "nearly a quarter of a million guns are sold each year by unlicensed high-volume sellers on a single website alone: Armslist.com."
The administration reportedly considered requiring licenses for anyone selling more than a specified number of weapons. But in the end, it chose to focus on what Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the "totality of circumstances."
This approach may prompt some sellers to get licenses to be safe, but the vagueness that existed before remains -- letting some go on skirting the law and making some prosecutions chancy. Whether it will have a real impact is an open question.
A more promising step is doing more to identify individuals whose mental health history disqualifies them. The Social Security Administration will draft a new rule to assure that the background check system will have information on "the approximately 75,000 people each year who have a documented mental health issue, receive disability benefits and are unable to manage those benefits because of their mental impairment, or who have been found by a state or federal court to be legally incompetent." The White House also promised to "remove unnecessary legal barriers preventing states from reporting relevant information" about those with mental illness.
Obama also wants to improve the efficiency of the background check system, which had to handle 22.2 million requests last year, by adding FBI personnel and updating technology. That should not be controversial. Dylann Roof, the accused killer of nine people at a South Carolina church in June, was able to buy the gun he allegedly used in the attack only because of a lapse in the system, according to FBI Director James Comey.
Obama didn't oversell what he's doing. As he wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times, "These actions won't prevent every act of violence, or save every life -- but if even one life is spared, they will be well worth the effort."
What the administration has embraced are incremental changes that hold some potential to reduce the amount of gun crime and violence in America. Until Congress is prepared to take bigger steps, they're appreciably better than nothing.
