Obama to 'evaluate' gun control laws proposed in wake of Colorado mass murder

by Chad D. Baus

The Washington Times is reporting that President Obama is considering support for the latest legislative knee-jerk reaction to mass murder in a "no-guns" zone - a proposed ban on the sale of ammunition online and on standard capacity magazines (neither of which would have stopped the Aurora, CO spree killer).

From the article:

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that President Obama will "evaluate" a new bill that would ban online ammunition sales in the wake of the shooting massacre in Aurora, Colo. That left 12 dead and dozens more injured.

During the daily press briefing, Mr. Earnest was asked whether Mr. Obama supports the measure, which aims to end sales of unlimited amounts of ammunition on the Internet and other mail orders. The bill also would force ammunition dealers to report large sales of bullets and other munitions to law enforcement authorities

At first Mr. Earnest said he didn't know if Mr. Obama was aware of a bill sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Democrat from New Jersey, and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat from New York. He later amended this remarks to say the White House would evaluate the measure.

According to the article, the reporter followed up by asking whether the president's push for enforcing existing law would prevent him from supporting the bill banning online munition sales.

"Well, like I said, I haven't seen the specific piece of legislation that has been offered up today. But as those — as that and other pieces of legislation make their way through the legislative process, you know, we'll consider — we'll evaluate them as they make their way through the process," he noted.

As John Lott pointed out this week in an op-ed published at FoxNews.com, the Lautenberg and McCarthy proposal "would make rules for buying ammunition the same as for buying a gun. But the Colorado killer was able to legally buy a gun from a dealer and, under the proposal, he still would have been able to buy the ammunition. The requirement of a photo ID seems equally irrelevant in this case.

"The law also would mandate licensed ammunition dealers to report the sale of more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition to an unlicensed person within any five consecutive business days. But what good would that do? The Colorado killer apparently planned his attack at least four months in advance. If he were trying to hide his ammunition purchases, he could easily have spread them out over time."

Several Senate Democrats including Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have also proposed amending the cybersecurity bill to ban magazines holding more than 10 bullets. But as Lott notes, "we have already tried the magazine ban and it won't be any more helpful now than it was when the Federal Assault Weapon Ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004. A magazine, which is basically a metal box with a spring, is trivially easy to make and virtually impossible to stop criminals from obtaining.

"Further, the guns in several recent mass shootings (including the one in Aurora and last year in Tucson) have jammed because of the large magazines that were used."

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Vice Chairman.