Ezra Klein's Wonkbook Reviews Obama's Gun Plan

Jesus packs.

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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Welcome to Wonkbook, Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas’s morning policy news primer. Send comments, criticism, or ideas to Wonkbook at Gmail dot com. To read more by Ezra and his team, go to Wonkblog.

Wonkbook’s Number of the Day: 23. That’s the number of separate executive actions President Obama initiated on Wednesday to address gun violence. Note that an executive action is not necessarily an executive order — “launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health” is an action, not an order – and many of the largest policy changes will eventually need to go to Congress. More below.

Wonkblog’s Graph of the Day: The world’s most polluted cities.

Wonkbook’s Top 5 Stories: 1) A primer on Obama’s gun control proposals; 2) the conservatives who could talk the congressional GOP of the debt-ceiling ledge; 3) groundbreaking new data analysis on trade; 4) young people have no idea what Roe v. Wade accomplished; and 5) the Republicans line up against the carbon tax.

1) Top story: Everything you need to know about Obama’s gun control plan

Obama unveils his gun control proposals. “President Obama on Wednesday formally proposed the most expansive gun-control policies in generations and initiated 23 separate executive actions aimed at curbing what he called ‘the epidemic of gun violence in this country.’…Obama called on Congress to swiftly pass legislation to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines for civilian use and to require universal background checks for all gun buyers. His proposals include mental health and school safety measures, as well as a tough new crackdown on gun trafficking.” Philip Rucker and Ed O’Keefe in The Washington Post.

Read: The primary source on Obama’s proposals.

Read this, too: Transcript of Obama’s remarks yesterday on gun control.

Mark your calendar: The first Senate hearing on gun control is scheduled for Jan. 30. Ed O’Keefe in The Washington Post.

To argue for gun control, Obama turns the Constitution around on the GOP. “Obama sought to turn a perceived political weaknesses -- his image as an aloof intellectual -- into a strength, and, at the same time, to turn a perceived strength of gun advocates -- the constitutional right to bear arms -- into a potential weakness…Where his past legal arguments have been directed at Congress or the Supreme Court, Obama used what he suggested was a clash of sometimes-competing rights guaranteed by the Constitution to assure Americans across party lines that his proposals amount to a modest approach to a societal problem.” Scott Wilson in The Washington Post.

@AlecMacGillis: Your formative years matter. Obama’s were spent in the gun-plagued South Side. He’s ducked this issue and knows it. No more.

So that’s what Obama wants. Now here’s what can actually get through Congress. “President Obama announced a sweeping slate of new gun control proposals Wednesday designed to curb mass violence, including new restrictions on guns, efforts to enhance school safety, and improving treatment of mental health issues. Some items will be enacted via executive order while others will require action on Capitol Hill. Below, we take a closer look at the larger proposals that will require action from Congress and offer our best educated guess of how likely they are to pass, based on recent polling and what lawmakers have said.” Sean Sullivan in The Washington Post.

Obama wants universal background checks for gun buyers. Would that work? “I asked the University of Chicago's Jens Ludwig, who has studied the issue in depth. His bottom line: A universal background check law could conceivably reduce gun violence. But it might also prove difficult to enforce…The big challenge, says Ludwig, would be enforcement. There are 300 million guns currently in circulation and the federal government doesn't have any data on who owns what. There's no national registry for guns. All the federal trace data shows is who originally bought the gun from a licensed dealer.” Brad Plumer in The Washington Post.

What gun experts have to say about Obama’s proposals. “So which of his proposals might have the most meaningful impact on gun violence? And which policy ideas could prove ineffective? We asked a number of gun and crime experts for their thoughts on different aspects of Obama's proposals today. Here are five points that stuck out.”Brad Plumer in The Washington Post.

@chrislhayes: Gun safety advocates are pretty damn happy w the President’s proposals.

How to tackle violence and mental illness in schools. “[T]he White House wants $50 million to train new mental health professionals, $25 million for school-based trauma treatment and violence prevention programs, $25 million for state-based mental health programs targeting youths ages 16 to 25, $15 million to train teachers to deal with mental illness, and $40 million to help school districts direct students to the mental health services they need.” Dylan Matthews in The Washington Post.

One of the fights will be just to get an ATF Bureau director. “President Obama indicated on Wednesday that along with asking members of Congress to pass measures like an assault weapons ban, he would be ratcheting up pressure on lawmakers to do something they have refused to do for the past six years: confirm a permanent director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.” Michael S. Schmidt in The New York Times.

@davidfrum: How bold are Obama’s 23 executive actions on guns? THIS bold: “11. Nominate an ATF director.” There hasn’t been one in 6 years.

Obama wants CDC to study link between video games and violence. “President Obama is calling on Congress to appropriate $10 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study gun violence, including possible links to violent video games and media images, according to a White House briefing document.” Jennifer Martinez in The Hill.

Senate forecast for guns: cloudy. “Senate Democrats appear unlikely to push through much of the sweeping gun agenda President Barack Obama laid out on Wednesday -- largely because of a lack of votes from Republicans and Second Amendment concerns from a handful of Democratic moderates…People familiar with the matter say the most likely scenario is that the Democratic-controlled Senate moves gun legislation on a piecemeal basis rather than in a comprehensive fashion.” Manu Raju and Ginger Gibson in Politico

How the NRA reacted to Obama’s proposals. “The National Rifle Association has come against President Obama's proposals to curb gun violence, saying they will only hurt legal gun-owners while leaving children unprotected.” Rachel Weiner in The Washington Post.

@jonathanweisman: Has a single response to Obama’s gun proposal surprised anyone? I’m not seeing it.

Explainer: The NRA’s influence, in 6 charts. Chris Cillizza in The Washington Post.

CILLIZZA: On guns, Obama goes for broke. “As the details of President Obama's plan to curb gun violence in the country began to leak out over the past 24 hours, one thing became immediately clear: He was asking for it all…President Obama chose to unveil a sweeping package of executive actions and legislative proposals that is being described as the most expansive attempt to curtail violence with guns in decades…That approach is a marked change from Obama's negotiating position in past legislative fights in which, Democrats often complained, he negotiated with himself.” Chris Cillizza in The Washington Post.

DIONNE: This time, the moderate fights. “This fight is especially challenging for many who view themselves as ‘moderates’ or ‘centrists.’ Moderation is a thoroughly honorable disposition, and Obama's proposals are moderation incarnate. By international standards, they are very cautious.” E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post.

RESNIKOFF: The political philosophy behind Obama on gun control. “Republicanism as a political philosophy has roots that go as far back as the Roman republic, but in its modern form it has been best articulated by the Irish political philosopher Philip Pettit. According to Pettit's Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government,republicans view liberty as the absence of domination, not interference…[H]is speech on Wednesday reflected a way of thinking about freedom which is very much bound up in traditional republican considerations of community and active state intervention on behalf of liberty.” Ned Resnikoff in MSNBC.

MILLER: What to do with the mentally ill and dangerous. “[T]he scientific view of mental illness poses huge challenges for how we think about law and the criminal justice system. Our legal system is designed to punish and isolate those who commit harmful actions, not unstable people who have yet to act.” Matt Miller in The Washington Post.

MILBANK: What’s at stake in the gun debate. “[I]f everyone is so concerned about the children, perhaps the grown-ups could agree to fight this out themselves -- and let kids worry about their books rather than high-capacity magazines.”Dana Milbank in The Washington Post.

Music recommendations interlude: The Foun