1887

CNN liveblog (only way to get real news these days) published the list of executive orders. No link, on my phone.

12 and 19 are the minimum I was looking for: training and model response plans for schools and other public places on what to do at the (inevitable) point of attack. No idea how that will be funded. Local action is likely still required.

There is also some incentive to hire resource officers. I assume there’s an upper bound there too without money from Congress.

I’d rather they use that money to install door locks in every school in America. I was reading about the VT shooting again today. People behind locked doors and strong barricades survived. Such a shame. I wish this got more press among the gun control debate.

I also see the guy at VT had 19 magazines with him. That’s 133 rounds in New York. These murderers are suicidal, but still smart. Like Eric Harris (13 mags) I think they’ll figure out ways around AWBs. Cross your fingers.

1888

“Yes. Of course they are. Don’t be an idiot.”

1889

If the president’s kids were not protected they’d be much, much more likely to be targeted than my kids. Is the NRA really that stupid, or do they think their audience is? Or maybe both?

1890

  1. “Issue a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.”

  2. “Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.”

  3. “Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.”

  4. “Direct the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.”

  5. “Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.”

  6. “Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.”

  7. “Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.”

  8. “Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).”

  9. “Issue a presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.”

  10. “Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.”

  11. “Nominate an ATF director.”

  12. “Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.”

  13. “Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.”

  14. “Issue a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.”

  15. “Direct the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.”

  16. “Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.”

  17. “Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.”

  18. “Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.”

  19. “Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.”

  20. “Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.”

  21. “Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.”

  22. “Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.”

  23. “Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.”

Raw text, comments follow.

1891
  1. Okay
  2. Okay
  3. Okay
  4. Okay
  5. Okay, though why are the seizing it in the first place?
  6. Good, at least some thought is going into it. How much does it cost, and will there be a mandate that they have to do the check?
  7. Good, they can use the NRA’s programs as a template
  8. Okay
  9. Okay
  10. Okay
  11. “Specifically one that isn’t violently partisan and has a chance of passage”
  12. Okay
  13. Er, we weren’t doing that already?
  14. Okay
  15. Okay
  16. Okay
  17. Okay (why did they think there was such a law?)
  18. Okay
  19. Okay
  20. Okay
  21. Okay
  22. Okay
  23. Okay

Well, there you have it. Everyone do your jobs well, clarify everything. Frankly if I was on the gun control side I would feel like I just got served a big ol’ plate of nothing. Of course there’s legislation coming as well, which will be the big fight, but this was remarkably milquetoast.

H.

1892

“… instead, I chose something different. I chose… the impossible. I chose… Crapture!”

1893

Now for the legislation requests:

– require universal background checks (background checks on anyone who would buy a gun, whether in stores or at auctions and conventions)

– restore a ban on “military-style assault weapons” (the ban expired in 2004)

– ban gun magazines with capacities of more than 10 rounds

– tougher penalties on people who sell guns to people who aren’t allowed to have guns

So he’s going for gun show loophole and the '94 AWB. If they put another sunset on it and leave it as it was written back then, I call this a success for the shooters.

1894

Per capita or absolute? I think throwing out figures that aren’t per capita that involve the state with the largest city in the nation is disingenuous.

1895

Gun control is the most BS political hot button issue in America anyway.

Basically, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Liberals hyperventilate about guns, hate guns, want to ban guns, want to go to an Australian solution that will end guns… but can’t, because it’s a stupid constitutional right. And unlike most Lib vs. Cons. issues this one isn’t going to fix itself when all the old white guys die off. Conservatives flip out about gun control, hyperventilate about tyranny and King George, and throw billions of pages of grousing at whatever issue that even possibly shows that there might be even the slightest restriction on guns, and with the unironic, humorless enthusiasm of true believers, insist the solution to gun related violence is always more guns.

At the end of the day, it’s a constitutional right and half of the guns on the planet are in private hands in the US. Even cursory restrictions on pistol ownership have been shot down. It sucks, it’s stupid, and it means we live in a society where more people will die from guns than any other place in the world not in a civil war, but there nothing we can do about it (at least in any substantial way). So, fuck gun politics, basically.

1896

No, you are that stupid. Of course the President’s kids should be protected. Yet, who is more likely to get shot these days? A kid in the bad areas of Chicago or Detroit, a suburban CT school kid by a nut job or the prez’s kids, guarded by secrect service and the hired guards at the private school they attend. Odds are the kids in Chicago or Detroit are the most likely, despite Chicago being a gun free zone, legally anyway.

You have cops in many urban schools with metal detectors yet kids still get killed by drive-bys while playing in front of their own house. Conneticut has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and yet those kids were still killed. More laws on guns are not the answer, unless you ban all of them and that won’t solve the problem, just create a new war on guns as people take to the black market like drugs.

1897

Heh. Beck is like some 13 year old working on his Dungeons and Dragon campaign.

1898

Well yes, a kid in a firezone is much more likely to get victimized than the president’s kids who are protected by the secret service. The question really is what would happen to the president’s kids if they went to a school and it was known there was no protection out of the ordinary for them. The odds would skyrocket that some nutcase would do something. I’d argue that they’d be at higher risk than the kid in inner city school.

It’s a higher risk than average for the inner city kid vs. an extraordinarily high risk for the president’s kids if knowingly left unprotected.

1899

Beck reminds me now of that disgraced preacher from the early 90s, the one married to the woman with too much make-up. Jim Bakker.

He built that “Heritage USA” theme park and associated housing projects to be an Evangelical Christian utopia. And I guess it succeeded for a while too… up until the Feds decided that a theme park and housing shouldn’t have tax-exempt status.

1900

And yet the initial reaction from the NRA is of outrage, and that from the media is that the 23 exec orders represent bold action.

1901

You’d almost think the media was courting conflict and brewing divisiveness for the sake of ratings! Naw, can’t be.

1902

Sigh. I know. This could easily be a huge win for damned near everyone (Except the NRA) but the loudmouths will screw it up. It would be nice if the NRA was just playing the long con but I don’t think they’re that subtle/smart. (same position I took on the supposed nefarious scientific suppression plot.)

1903

It’s not just that. The president’s kids aren’t protected simply because they are more likely to die (which would mean that the NRA’s argument is reasonable - “No, his kids aren’t more important than mine! My kids should at least get a scaled-down version of the protection his get, proportional to their relative risk of being the target of violence.”). The president’s kids are protected because the leverage they represent to potential enemies is too great of a risk to the country as a whole. So yes, they are more important to the country than your kids are, and thus the country must protect them disproportionately to how it protects your kids.

1904

The stupid thing is that they could have made the ad about David Gregory’s kids, who attend the same school, and made some political points. Tone deaf really doesn’t cover it.

1905

Right. The President’s kids aren’t any more precious to him and the first lady than Joe Average’s kids, and if anything bad happened to them it wouldn’t be more of a family tragedy.

But harming Joe Average’s kids in any way doesn’t necessarily say, destabilize worldwide stock markets, or raise tensions in war torn regions of the world, or potentially get the military mobilized somewhere (assuming it turns out to be the work of a foreign govenment)…

And Joe Average being sad and angry and distracted and insane with worry over his kids being in danger may affect his job, but Joe Average doesn’t run an army or control any nukes and isn’t mired in critical budget negotiations or whatnot.

1906

Actually only three were “executive orders” (the ones that start with “Issue a presidential memorandum”) which carry the force of law. The rest were “executive actions” which apparently do not. They’re more like a presidential to-do list.