If you missed President Obama's politically laced speech on Sunday in Newtown, Conn. he hinted extensively about new gun control measures coming down the pike either through legislation or executive order.
Now the Washington Post is reporting President Obama has officially asked his cabinet members for gun control proposals.
President Obama on Monday began the first serious push of his administration to attempt to reduce gun violence, directing Cabinet members to formulate a set of proposals that could include reinstating a ban on assault rifles.
The effort will be led by Vice President Biden, according to two people outside the government who have spoken to senior administration officials since Friday, when a gunman killed his mother and rampaged through Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children, six adults and himself.
Obama, who has appeared shaken by the Sandy Hook shootings, met Monday with Biden, who advocated for stricter gun-control measures during his years in the Senate. The president also spoke Monday with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “to begin looking at ways the country can respond to the tragedy in Newtown,” according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Others involved in the new effort include White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler; Biden’s chief counsel, Cynthia C. Hogan; and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who traveled with Obama to Connecticut on Sunday to address a memorial service for the Sandy Hook victims.
One of the key voices on the other side of the discussion has been Holder, according to the two sources outside the administration, who have been involved in the debate.
Holder was behind a 2011 Justice Department study on gun violence, conducted after a shooting in a Tucson parking lot left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) critically wounded and six others dead. But the report, which outlined more than a dozen measures to reduce gun violence, was never acted on as Obama’s reelection campaign took shape.
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FLASHBACK: Eric Holder says we need to "brainwash" people against guns.
According to my sources, ATF and the Department of Justice are gearing up to push for more gun control through regulation and of course would enforce new gun control legislation if it was passed. The situation we are going to be in is this: the same Department of Justice that allowed the illegal transfer of 2500 semi-automatic AK-47 assault rifles to ruthless Mexican cartels, which resulted in the murders of hundreds in Mexico (including children) and two U.S. federal agents, is going to be dictating and enforcing the prohibition of sane law abiding U.S. citizen's owning semi-automatic rifles. Fantastic.
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