Guns and Immigration: Obama's Two Challenges

Two months after the start of his second term, Barack Obama has had difficulty imposing his reform program. The predicted apocalypse regarding his budgetary plan did not happen because the Republicans fought it into retreat. The deadlines, which would have seen the “end” of the federal government, have been pushed back. Well before the fateful March 27 date, the federal budget [deadline] was pushed back to the end of September.

The drastic arbitrary cuts — $85 billion or 66.3 billion euros — passed for all public programs did not have only negative consequences. Under pressure, the Senate, for the first time in four years, adopted a budget plan for 2014. The president must present his own during the week of April 8.

However, the Obama train is slipping on social reform plans. The movement for gun control and immigration reform that the president launched in his February 12 State of the Union address has been submitted to Congress’ political calculations.

“Shame on Us If We’ve Forgotten.”

On March 28, 100 days after the Newtown, Conn. shooting, in which 20 children were killed, Obama expressed his frustration at not having yet been able to enact a law reinforcing gun control.

In front of a group of 21 mothers of children killed by guns — 35 days ago for the most recent victim — the American president reacted with exasperation at commentary declaring that now that the emergency is past, Americans no longer have the same passion for limiting the bearing of firearms in the U.S.

“The entire country was shocked, and the entire country pledged we would do something about it and that this time would be different,” Obama said. “Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.”

Obama, who has headed a campaign to outlaw assault rifles and to reinforce controls, finds himself where many had predicted: blocked by the political realities of Congress and by those who belong to his own party. Before they all left for Easter break, he urged the representatives not to “soften,” even if time has passed, and gun control is no longer a front-page topic.

The Democrats, who are under-represented in the Senate, are fearful of electoral repercussions in the next half-term elections in 2014. Six among them, moderate senators elected in largely Republican or split-down-the-middle states, have signaled their voters’ hostility to any measures that would limit rights to acquire guns.

Criminal Background Checks

After having renounced outlawing AR-15 assault rifles — the gun used by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the Newtown school killer who, according to official documents revealed on Tuesday, shot 154 bullets at the school and one to his mother’s head with a .22 caliber gun — the Democrats are now ready to lighten their legislative plans, which envisage that not a single gun sale could take place without a preliminary criminal record check and psychiatric evaluation of the purchaser.

A Large Majority of Americans Approve of This Measure Now

“Right now, 90 percent of Americans — 90 percent — support background checks that will keep criminals and people who have been found to be a danger to themselves or others from buying a gun,” reminded Barack Obama. “More than 80 percent of Republicans agree. Most gun owners agree. Think about it: How often do 90 percent of Americans agree on anything?”

Since its return from break, the Senate is going to throw itself back into examining the bill, but even its refined version could encounter a filibuster. A Republican representative has already started to prepare an alternative text.

To try to maintain a heading, after Easter the president must go to Colorado, where the majority-Democrat local congress is about to adopt the ban of semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity cartridge clips, a vote without precedent in a Western state, where bearing arms is part of the way of life. Ever since, Colorado has been the object of a boycott by hunters.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the “anti-gun” circle founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, invested $12 million in a campaign targeting 15 undecided senators. It has planned a series of 120 events across the country to communicate the fact that “nine out of 10 Americans,” including seven out of 10 National Rifle Association members, support the idea of background checks to buy guns, no matter what the point of the sale is. In reality, the checks are only required when acquisitions take place at one of 55,000 businesses holding a federal license. Trade fairs and Internet sites are not included.

The President Is in a Race against the Clock

President Obama has had a less difficult time imposing his other legislative priority, immigration reform, which will open ways to regulating the 11 million foreigners without papers. If the gun legislation has not succeeded in attracting a single Republican senator up until now, a bipartisan commission supports the project on immigration. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham have accepted, for once, to play the role of the president’s idea bearers. On March 27, they inspected the border fence in Arizona. Certification that the border is well-sealed is one of the conditions that the reform must meet to pass.

The president is engaged in a race against the clock. It is essential that legislation be submitted at the start of April, he underlined, to be permanently adopted by the end of summer. He knows that he only has a small window to use the path of negotiation. Starting in fall, the new electoral cycle will begin for the November 2014 “midterms” (half-term elections), which will limit the possibility for compromise.