WASHINGTON — President Obama yesterday brushed aside fierce opposition from the gun lobby and pro-gun lawmakers, vowing to pursue a ban on military-style assault weapons and other tough new firearms laws.
“My starting point is not to worry about the politics,” Obama said at a press conference. “My starting point is to focus on . . . what we should be doing to make sure that our children are safe and that we’re reducing the incidence of gun violence.”
Obama said that within days, he will unveil a set of gun-control proposals in response to the mass killing last month at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
The proposals, compiled by a task force headed by Vice President Joe Biden, likely also include enhanced background checks and mental-health screenings for gun buyers, bans on high-capacity ammo clips, stricter gun-crime penalties, and firearms-education initiatives.
Obama acknowledged that some measures might not pass Congress, but he refused to give up without trying.
“Will all of them get through this Congress? I don’t know,” he said. “But . . . if there is a step we can take that will save even one child from what happened in Newtown, we should take that step.”
Obama said that’s why he will use executive powers to enact some gun-control measures without Congress, such as ordering federal agents to gather more gun data and track firearms.
“Where you get to take a step that has the opportunity to reduce the possibility of gun violence, then I want to go ahead and take it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg teed off on Congress for not doing enough about gun violence, including not cracking down on gun trafficking.
“Every state in the union has citizens killed by guns coming from another state,” Bloomberg said as he kicked off a gun-violence summit at John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
“Every state is powerless to stop the mayhem,” he said. “Until Congress gets tough on trafficking, guns will continue flowing to our streets,” he said.