Biden to head new US gun policy
2012-12-19 16:18
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Washington - President Barack Obama will announce on
Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden will lead an effort to come up with
policies to address gun violence amid calls for action following the massacre
of 26 people including 20 children in a Connecticut elementary school last
week.
The president is not expected to announce policy
decisions but rather lay out the process by which his administration will move
forward, White House aides said.
Obama has turned to Biden in the past to take a role in
high-profile policy initiatives, such as efforts to seek a deficit-reduction
compromise with congressional Republicans in 2011.
Biden's mission - to co-ordinate a process among
government agencies to formulate policies in the wake of the Newtown shootings
- comes just days after an event that appears to have generated a national
outcry for greater efforts to stem gun violence.
The Connecticut massacre was the fourth shooting rampage
to claim multiple lives in the US this year.
The president issued a call to action at a memorial
service in Newtown on Sunday, demanding changes to the way the US deals with
gun violence. Obama said that in coming weeks he would "use whatever power
this office" holds to start efforts to preventing further such tragedies.
However, gun control has been a low priority for most US
politicians due to the widespread popularity of guns in America and the clout
of the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun industry lobby.
Gun regulation
The constitutional right to bear arms is seen by many
Americans as set in stone, and even after mass shootings, politicians have
tiptoed around specific steps to limit access to lethal weapons.
Even so, the horror of the Newtown killings, in which a
20-year-old man killed 6- and 7-year-old children and their teachers in their
classrooms before taking his own life, has provoked an apparent change of heart
in some politicians who have previously opposed gun control.
One such official is Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of
West Virginia. The gun rights advocate said he would now be open to more
regulation of military-style rifles like the one used in Newtown. Obama spoke
with him on Tuesday, the White House said.
The White House spelled out some gun control measures on
Tuesday that Obama would support.
White House spokesperson Jay Carney said Obama would back
US Senator Dianne Feinstein's effort to reinstate an assault weapons ban. The
president also would favour any law to close a loophole related to gun-show
sales, he said.
Efforts to limit high-capacity gun ammunition clips would
be another area of interest, Carney said.
