By Alan Fram and Nedra Pickler
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Six months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, some of the victims’ families are heading to Capitol Hill to remind lawmakers they are painfully waiting for action, while some of the president’s allies are asking him to do more without any new prospects of legislation to toughen gun laws.
The lobbying visit this week is one of several observances gun control proponents are planning for the half-year anniversary of the Dec. 14 massacre of 20 first graders and six staff in Newtown, Conn.
The Sandy Hook families and other activists are keeping pressure on lawmakers to expand background purchases for firearm sales, despite Senate rejection of the measure in April and no indication votes have shifted.
Nicole Hockley, who lost 6-year-old Dylan at Sandy Hook, said their family’s pain has only gotten worse as time goes by without the younger of their two sons at home.
She says the fight for new laws, which they’ve also taken to several states, has left them emotionally exhausted, but they won’t give up “no matter how long it takes.”
“It is very disappointing that six months have passed, and although we are making progress in individual states, we aren’t making progress on the federal level when it comes to background checks when an overwhelming number of Americans support it,” she said in a telephone interview.
Gun control advocates also are anticipating further action from President Barack Obama, who said he would do everything he could to stem gun violence even without Congress.
The Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank with close ties to the White House, is asking Obama to issue a dozen more executive actions they say are within his power to reduce gun crimes.
The group has been pushing those measures in meetings with the White House, where point man Vice President Joe Biden declared in an email to supporters Friday, “This fight is far from over.”
Obama issued 23 executive actions in the aftermath of Sandy Hook and hasn’t ruled out doing more.
His aides say he isn’t planning to announce any new initiatives or hold a gun-related event this week but will likely acknowledge the anniversary.
Arkadi Gerney, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said their recommendations build on Obama’s earlier actions with more specific measures to vigorously prosecute gun crimes.
The center’s suggestions include a system to alert local police when felons attempt to buy guns, allowing firearms dealers to run the same background checks on their own employees as they do for customers, penalizing states that don’t provide mental health data to the background check system and confiscating firearms from domestic abusers.
Gerney said one recommendation grew out of the Boston bombing case, after the suspects reportedly scratched off the serial number on a handgun used in a firefight with police to
prevent tracking.
He says Obama’s Justice Department could require manufacturers to place a second serial number inside the barrel or another hidden location.
“What you want is a whole series of laws that makes it harder for dangerous people to get guns and holds them accountable when they do get guns,” Gerney said. “Most are about enforcing the laws that already are on the books and that’s something the NRA and the gun lobby has said it supports.”
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