Justice Dept. Studied and Shelved Ideas to Bolster Gun Database
By Charlie Savage, New York Times, Dec. 15/16, 2012

WASHINGTON — After the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and others in early 2011, the Justice Department drew up a detailed list of steps the government could take to expand the background-check system in order to reduce the risk of guns falling into the hands of mentally ill people and criminals.

Most of the proposals, though, were shelved at the department without action against the backdrop of the election campaign and the politically charged Congressional investigation into the Operation Fast and Furious gun trafficking case, according to people familiar with the internal deliberations.

While it is not clear whether any of the proposals would have had an effect on the massacre at an Connecticut elementary school, the set of recommendations could provide a blueprint if the Obama administration chooses to go forward with more aggressive steps to curb gun violence. The Justice Department’s list included several measures that President Obama could enact by executive order even if Congress failed to take any new actions [.....]

Charles Blow's  Dec. 14 column @ The New York Times, "A Tragedy of Silence," has some good factuals with links:

[....] And while gun control advocates grow more quiet, the gun lobby grows stronger and louder. According to a report issued Friday by the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org, “For gun rights groups, 2012 was the most active election cycle since 2000. [....]

No wonder public opinion is shifting away from gun control. Gallup found that the number of Americans who believe that these laws should be stricter fell more than 40 percent from 1991 to 2011.

Gallup also found, for the first time last year, “greater opposition to than support for a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles, 53 percent to 43 percent. In the initial asking of this question in 1996, the numbers were nearly reversed, with 57 percent for and 42 percent against an assault rifle ban.”

Both the Oregon and Connecticut shooters had semiautomatic weapons.

And screening prospective gun buyers for criminal records and for mental illness is helpful, but it is not enough and isn’t always done.

And mass shooters don’t necessarily have criminal records and seem to have no problem obtaining legal guns.

An analysis published earlier this year by Mother Jones of the 61 mass shootings in America over the last 30 years found that: “Of the 139 guns possessed by the killers, more than three-quarters were obtained legally.”

(The Oregon shooter stole his gun. The Connecticut shooter’s guns are reported to have been legally purchased in his mother’s name.)

We must reinstate the assault weapons ban. Military-style guns belong in the hands of military personnel, and maybe police officers, but not in the hands of civilians.

A vast majority of mass shootings in the last three decades involved assault weapons and semiautomatic handguns, according to Mother Jones. [....]