White House Confirms Obama Supports New Gun Laws, Ban on Assault Weapons

We knew this was coming, but now the White House confirms it.

Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Tuesday President Obama "strongly" supports renewal of the assault weapons ban and would back new gun legislation.

According to Politico:

Carney also offered some other gun laws Obama would back. 'He supports and would support legislation that addresses the problem of the so-called gun show loophole, and there are other elements of gun legislation that he could support… high capacity ammunition clips, for example. That is certainly something he would be interested in looking at,' he said.

This comment about the so-called gun show loophole shows ignorance about a situation that really doesn't exist. According to the CATO Institute, commercially-licensed gun show operators must perform background checks on people who buy weapons at gun shows.  This loophole argument was made during the Clinton administration as an excuse for the 1994 Assault Weapons ban and other gun controls.

While there are a small handful of non-commercial operators who trade or sell guns privately, government studies have shown the number of firearms used in crimes obtained through such a private non-licensed show is almost non-existent. The amount of gun-related crimes linked to commercial gun shows is almost as small.

Newsmax reported in September:

The Department of Justice conducted a crime survey a few years ago and found that less than one percent of guns used in crimes were bought at gun shows. That would make 99 percent of the guns purchased at gun shows not a problem.

The CATO Institute added from their piece a number of years ago:

There is no 'gun show loophole.' All commercial arms dealers at gun shows must run background checks, and the only people exempt from them are the small number of non-commercial sellers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, at most 2 percent of guns used by criminals are purchased at gun shows, and most of those were purchased legally by people who passed background checks.

In 1994, a 10-year ban on assault weapons was passed by the federal government. This covered such guns as the well known AR-15 which is often referred to as the civilian version of the military M-16, the Soviet created AK-47 and its offspring the AK-74. A study was done by the Department of Justice after the ban expired in 2004. What did they find?

The study failed to show a significant impact on “assault weapon” use or support the allegation that large-capacity magazines lead to more murders.

While Obama, by way of Press Secretary Carney, keeps insisting on dialogue and sitting down with parties on both sides of the gun issue, his support for renewing the 1994 assault weapons ban shows he is clearly bent on limiting Americans' 2nd Amendment rights.