January 14, 2013 09:06 PM UTC

Can We Talk About Gun Violence?

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• by: Phoenix Rising

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Tomorrow – Tuesday – the President’s gun violence task force led by VP Biden is scheduled to unveil the results and recommendations of its work. At this point, no-one really knows what might be in the proposal, but we have a few vague clues.

In advance of the announcement though, we might have a glimpse of some of the possibilities. The Center For American Progress today released its own report on gun violence prevention (PDF) with a list of 16 recommendations – a mix of things that require the attention of Congress, plus a few things that the President might be able to do via Executive Order.

What do you think? Do you have anything to add to the mix? What could we take from this report to use in Colorado without waiting for the Federal government to act?

The report groups recommended actions into three categories, and then further divides each category into Congressional action and Executive action. I’ve purposely made these points brief and will leave discussion to the comments.

Category 1: Improve Background Checks

• Universal background checks (Congress)
• Improve background check data (Congress)
• Broaden the cefinition of “Stalker” (Congress)
• Restrict firearms purchase by those on the Terrorist Watch List (Congress)
• Restrict DOJ grants to states that do not contribute data to the NICS system (Executive)
• Ensure Federal agencies are contributing all appropriate data to NICS (Executive)
• Order the ATF to perform background checks of gun store employees when performing audits (Executive)

Category 2: Weapon Restrictions

• Reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, or some modern variant thereof (Congress)
• Ban high-capacity magazines (Congress)
• Broaden reporting of multiple-gun sales to include assault style weapons (Executive)

Category 3: Use The Data

• Eliminate various riders restricting use of gun data from future appropriations bills (Congress)
• Increase penalties for gun trafficking and background check violations (Congress)
• Absorb ATF duties into the FBI (Executive)

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