[caption id=”attachment_122714″ align=”aligncenter” width=”771″] AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File
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The Justice Department is moving forward on new gun regulations not approved by Congress.
According to the Hill, the government agency hopes to enact the new regulations before the end of the Obama administration.
The regulations include restrictions on high-powered pistols, additional gun storage requirements, and new efforts to stop people with mental illness and domestic abuse convictions from owning a firearm.
The Justice Department will issue new rules with an expanded list of people who do not meet the requirements for owning a firearm, according to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ Unified Agenda.
Some of the new restrictions come from President Obama’s 23 executive actions he made in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings.
One of the new efforts involves the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) reviving an old rule proposed in 1998 that would prohibit firearm ownership among people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses.
ATF plans to finalize the regulation by November.
As usual, the fight between gun rights advocates, who contend that many people who are of no harm to society are having their Second Amendment rights stripped away, and supporters of gun control, who want to keep guns away from dangerous people, is getting heated.
“It’s clear President Obama is beginning his final assault on our Second Amendment rights by forcing his anti-gun agenda on honest, law-abiding citizens through executive force,” said the National Association for Gun Rights vice president of political affairs Luke O’Dell.
Yet, gun control activists — many of whom are frustrated with Congress and the courts for having sided with those in favor of expanding gun rights — are looking toward the president’s actions as their only hope.
“American women are 11 times more likely to be shot and killed than women in other developed countries. The high rate of domestic violence deaths in America is directly related to our weak gun laws. But we know that smart gun laws can — and do — stop domestic abuse from turning into murder,” says Everytown USA, a gun-control group backed by Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
