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Obama Gun Control Efforts Start Again: New Executive Actions on Gun Background Checks Proposed

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The Obama administration on Friday proposed two new executive actions to make it easier for states to provide mental health information to the national background check system, wading back into the gun control debate after a months-long hiatus.

Vice President Biden’s office announced the proposals Friday afternoon. Both pertain to the ability of states to provide information about the mentally ill and those seeking mental health treatment to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

One proposal would formally give permission to states to submit “the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands,” without having to worry about the privacy provisions in a law known as HIPAA.

“The proposed rule will not change the fact that seeking help for mental health problems or getting treatment does not make someone legally prohibited from having a firearm,” the statement said. “Furthermore, nothing in the proposed rule would require reporting on general mental health visits or other routine mental health care, or would exempt providers solely performing these treatment services from existing privacy rules.”

The other proposal would clarify that those who are involuntarily committed to a mental institution — both inpatient and outpatient — count under the law as “committed to a mental institution.” According to the administration, this change will help clarify for states what information to provide to the background check system, as well as who is barred from having guns.

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States Say “No” to Ludicrous Federal Rule That Employers Can’t Check into New Hires’ Criminal Backgrounds

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Photo Credit: APAttorneys general across the country are fighting back against new Obama administration guidelines on businesses using criminal background checks for job applicants and two federal lawsuits that followed, calling both “a quintessential example of gross federal overreach.”

The nine attorneys general sent the letter Wednesday to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which in April 2012 voted in favor of the new guidelines that warn such checks can discriminate against African-Americans because they being are arrested at a disproportionate rate compared to the rest of the U.S. population.

Fifteen months after issuing the guidelines — which included the recommendation that businesses eliminate such policies — the commission filed lawsuits against discount retailer Dollar General and a BMW facility in South Carolina for alleged civil rights violations.

“We believe that these lawsuits and your application of the law, as articulated through your enforcement guidance, are misguided and a quintessential example of gross federal overreach,” the attorneys general wrote in a nine-page letter to EEOC Chairman Jacqueline Berrien and the agency’s four commissioners.

The June 11 suits allege Dollar General violated the civil rights of two applicants. In the one case, the applicant alleged she was denied employment even though a felony conviction was incorrectly attributed to her.

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Obama Admin. Attempting to Ban as Racist Criminal Background Checks For New Hires

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Photo Credit: brettneilson

Are criminal background checks racist? That’s the startling new legal theory that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unveiled this week in lawsuits against employers. It’s another example of how President Obama’s appointees are using regulation to achieve policy goals they can’t get through Congress.

On Tuesday the EEOC accused retailer Dollar General DG -0.04% and a U.S. unit of German car maker BMW BMW.XE +1.26% of violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act by using criminal checks as part of their employment decisions. The logic? Blacks have higher conviction rates than whites, and therefore criminal checks discriminate against blacks.

The EEOC alleges that BMW discriminated against blacks because it screened contractors in South Carolina for convictions for “Murder, Assault & Battery, Rape, Child Abuse, Spousal Abuse (Domestic Violence), Manufacturing of Drugs, Distribution of Drugs, [and] Weapons Violations,” and more blacks than whites are convicted of those crimes.

The suit says 70 black BMW contractors and 18 non-black contractors had criminal convictions, and the company declined to hire them. The suit seeks redress, such as hiring the plaintiffs, back pay, legal costs and more, but only for the black contractors.

In its Dollar General suit, the agency says that 10% of blacks and 7% of non-black applicants failed the retailer’s criminal screening. The EEOC calls that three-percentage-point difference a “gross disparity” that is “statistically significant” enough to qualify as discrimination.

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Obama Taking Executive Action on Guns after Senate Vote

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Photo Credit: Svadilfari

Blocked by Congress from expanding gun sale background checks, President Obama is turning to actions within his own power to keep people from buying a gun who are prohibited for mental health reasons.

Federal law bans certain mentally ill people from purchasing firearms, but not all states are providing data to stop the prohibited sales to the FBI’s background check system. A federal review last year found 17 states contributed fewer than 10 mental health records to the database, meaning many deemed by a judge to be a danger still could have access to guns.

The Obama administration was starting a process Friday aimed at removing barriers in health privacy laws that prevent some states from reporting information to the background check system. The action comes two days after the Senate rejected a measure that would have required buyers of firearms online and at gun shows to pass a background check. That’s already required for shoppers at licensed gun dealers.

Stung by the defeat, Obama vowed to keep up the fight for the background check expansion but also to do what he could through executive action.

“Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities,” Obama said from the Rose Garden shortly after the Senate voted. “We’re going to address the barriers that prevent states from participating in the existing background check system.”

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Scarborough says GOP ‘Moving Toward Extinction’ after Blocking Gun Legislation

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough says the senators who voted against expanded background checks for gun buyers on Wednesday are providing “the opportunity for terrorists, for gang members, for criminals, for violent rapists” to purchase firearms.

The former Republican congressman also predicted that new gun control measures would eventually be passed.

“Most of the time, I know, when you lose, you lose,” Scarborough said Thursday. “I agree with Howard Dean on this one — we have only begun to fight. This is just the beginning. With every violent act that occurs in the future, and with guns being shipped from one gang to another. With terrorists going on the Internet advertising how easy it is to kill Americans because of our weak background check system, Mike [Barnicle], this has just begun. This will not end until we have a background check system that keeps our families and Americans’ families safer.”

Scarborough also criticized Senate Democrats for not pursuing filibuster reform at the beginning of the Congress and warned New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte that her vote against background checks would come back to haunt her.

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Sen. Mike Lee: Gun Bill Contains ‘Tomorrow’s Loopholes’

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photo credit: gage skidmore

Republican Sen. Mike Lee, of Utah, said Sunday he will not support the gun-control legislation being authored in the Senate because it contains loopholes and imposes limits on law-abiding gun owners.

Lee, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said despite the national tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012, politicians’ efforts to do the right thing have resulted in a flawed approach.

“Following the tragedy at Sandy Hook, Americans have been rightfully focused on how to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future,” he said. “But unfortunately, the proposals we’ve seen would serve primarily to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens while doing little, if anything, to actually prevent tragedies like this from occurring in the future.”

Lee said he “can’t support” the bill named after Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.

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Gun Bill Championed by Democrats Limits Rights of Homosexual Gun Owners

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Gay couples living in states that do not recognize their marriage will now be unable to transfer firearm ownership to their partners without undergoing a background check, should federal gun legislation recently proposed by Democratic Sen. Harry Reid become law.

According to the “Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013,” which was introduced in the Senate this week, only couples in a government-sanctioned relationships will be allowed to privately transfer ownership of their firearms without first having to pass the federal background check.

“It shall be unlawful for any person who is not licensed under this chapter to transfer a firearm to any other person who is not licensed under this chapter, unless a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer has first taken possession of the firearm,” the bill reads.

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Round Two Of Gun Control Battle: Extension Of Federal Background Checks

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Photo Credit: Christian Gooden/AP

In the early hours of Monday morning, James Seevakumaran pulled the fire alarm in his dorm at a Florida university, at the start of what he intended to be the latest mass shooting to horrify the nation. The plan was to force his fellow students out of their rooms, so he could “give them hell” with a military-style assault rifle equipped with a high-capacity magazine and plenty of back-up ammunition.

It was only the sharp wits of Seevakumaran’s room-mate that spared the US another massacre. He locked himself in the bathroom and called 911; as the SWAT team arrived minutes later the would-be gunman turned his rifle on himself and, before he had the chance to take anyone else’s life, ended his own.

A few hours later, Harry Reid, the majority leader in the US Senate, called his fellow Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein into his office and gave her some disappointing news. He told her that the chances of success of the bill she had sponsored – a ban on the sale of the type of assault rifle that Seevakumaran had just come so close to using – were so remote that he had decided to drop it from the gun control legislation that he will be bringing to the Senate floor next month.

Reid’s dumping of Feinstein’s assault weapons ban marks the first stage in the epic political struggle over guns prompted by the Newtown school tragedy in December, in which 20 children and six teachers were killed. Round one goes to the pro-gun lobby and its cheerleader, the National Rifle Association.

Now, almost exactly 100 days after the Sandy Hook massacre, round two begins. The stakes are even higher. On Thursday night, Reid indicated that unlike the assault weapons ban, he would be including in his bill a provision to extend federal background checks to all gun sales.

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Senate Gun Bill Would Expand Background Checks

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Gun control legislation the Senate debates next month will include an expansion of federal background checks for firearms buyers, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday in a victory for advocates of gun restrictions.

The announcement underscores that Democrats intend to take an aggressive approach in the effort to broaden the checks, currently required for transactions involving federally licensed firearms dealers but not private sales at gun shows or online.

President Barack Obama and many supporters of curbing guns consider an expansion of the system to private gun sales to be the most effective response lawmakers could take in the wake of December’s elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. The system is designed to keep guns from criminals, people with serious mental problems and others considered potentially dangerous.

The overall gun measure will also include legislation boosting penalties for illegal gun trafficking and modestly expanding a grant program for school security, said Reid, D-Nev. Its fate remains uncertain, and it will all but certainly need Republican support to survive.

Reid said that during Congress’ upcoming two-week break, he hopes senators will strike a bipartisan compromise on broadening background checks. Without a deal, he indicated the gun bill would include a stricter version approved this month by the Senate Judiciary Committee and authored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., expanding the system to virtually all private gun transactions with few exceptions.

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