Gun control is back.
President Obama on Wednesday unveiled a series of feel-good measures designed to play on the emotions of Americans saddened by the horrific shooting of 20 students at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month. Almost nothing he proposes to do would make anyone safer.
Surrounding himself with children, Mr. Obama said, “This will be difficult. There will be pundits and politicians and special-interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical, all-out assault on liberty — not because that’s true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves.”
The president said that he would go around Congress by taking 23 executive actions. He signed a handful as soon as the news conference ended, and one of the upcoming proclamations will order Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. “to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun” to determine if those categories need to be expanded. Mr. Holder’s agency is hardly the model for gun safety, considering it came up with the Operation Fast and Furious program to run guns to Mexican drug cartels.
