But the plan includes far more than these "big four," which will require legislation and policy changes. Obama will sign nearly two dozen executive actions that will not require congressional involvement but that are significant because they represent a sea change from the multiple cave-ins on guns Obama has made during his first administration.
Most heartening, he says that he is ready to give everything to this fight. We disagree with one thing: The time for some of these measures is not now, but long past - especially those that have handcuffed law enforcement, health officials and others from the most minimal oversight and regulation of guns.
Consider this one: a 15-year-old ban on evidence-based medical research into gun violence that Obama will now lift. In 1996, the Centers for Disease Control was prohibited from doing research that "may be used to promote gun control" and stripped from the funding for it.
That jaw-dropping fact points to the pervasiveness of the gun lobby, and we are frankly so disgusted with that organization that we are no longer going to use its name, since it gets far too much mention as it is. We will heretofore refer to them as "the gun goons."
The gun goons, who have been increasingly unhinged lately, seem to have no limit to the outrages they commit in the name of their self-centered interpretation of the Second Amendment - including outright lies. Chief gun goon Wayne LaPierre just sent a fundraising message to his members claiming that the White House was proposing legislation that would "ban your guns, register your ammunition purchases and even force you to register the firearms you already own." Even more disturbing, he referred to a White House meeting that "was sold to the public as an open discussion about how to improve school safety, but that was a dirty lie."
How would this country react if a world leader called the president, vice president and members of Congress "dirty liars"?
In some ways, we'd like to enourage LaPierre to keep going off the deep end - we're betting many of his members, and hopefully members of Congress, are getting tired of his crazy rants. It would be delicious irony if the actions of this goon eased the way for this package of necessary and important changes in our gun culture.
