Obama’s actions on guns test limits on his power

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Monday the executive actions he intends to roll out this week to tighten gun rules were 'well within” his legal authority and consistent with the constitutional right to bear arms, a warning to opponents who are likely to challenge them in court.

Obama is igniting a political firestorm by bypassing Congress with the measures, which are likely to redefine what it means to be a gun dealer and spark increased use of background checks.

Republicans said Obama is misusing his powers in a 'dangerous” overreach of presidential power, and other critics note the possible actions are likely to have only hard-to-measure effects.

As soon as Tuesday Obama may announce some of the rules, which could include requiring more sellers to undertake background checks and set new requirements for reporting guns lost or stolen while in transit.

'These are not only recommendations that are well within my legal authority and the executive branch, but they're also ones that the overwhelming majority of the American people, including gun owners, support,” Obama said in a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other advisers.

Shares in gun makers Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. and Sturm Ruger & Co. rose against a falling stock market Monday in anticipation of increased gun sales, as has happened before when the White House contemplated gun measures.

According to the FBI, the agency's National Instant Background Check System processed 23.1 million firearm background checks in 2015. That was 2.2 million more than the previous year, and an record.

Congress has not approved major gun-control legislation since the 1990s. Stymied by the inaction, the president asked his advisers in recent months to examine ways he could use his executive authority to tighten gun rules unilaterally after multiple mass shootings generated outrage nationwide.

The president's use of executive action launches his final year with a move that Republicans say exemplifies misuse of his powers. Congress rejected Obama's proposals for legislation to tighten gun rules in 2013.

'While we don't yet know the details of the plan, the president is at minimum subverting the legislative branch, and potentially overturning its will,” GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said in a statement. 'This is a dangerous level of executive overreach, and the country will not stand for it.”

Obama's likely plan to focus on small-scale gun sellers who aren't required to conduct background checks on buyers wouldn't have blocked the sales of weapons used in most recent mass shootings, including the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., and the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The firearms in those cases were purchased legally through conventional outlets.

Few of the guns bought from unlicensed dealers are sold directly to criminals. A study by the Department of Justice found that just 0.7 percent of state prison inmates in 1997 had purchased their weapons at a gun show. By contrast, nearly 40 percent of inmates said they obtained the firearm used in their crime from family or friends, and 39 percent said they got the weapon from an illegal street source.

That's supported by a study released last year by researchers at the University of Chicago and Duke University who surveyed inmates at Chicago's Cook County Jail. They found it was rare for offenders to obtain guns through formal channels, with just 1 in 10 saying they bought the weapon at a gun store or pawnshop. Some 70 percent said they got their guns through friends, family or street connections.

'What they told us was that they were not buying their guns at flea markets or gun shows,” said Philip J. Cook, a professor of public policy, economics and sociology at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy who co-authored the study.

'To the extent that continues to be the case, I would say the president's action in this area is not going to have much direct effect on criminal access to guns,” he said.

Still, Cook said the move could have an indirect effect on preventing gun deaths by disrupting the supply chain that supplies the underground market.

Obama acknowledged the limits of what he can do by himself without lawmakers.

'Although we have to be very clear that this is not going to solve every violent crime in this country, it's not going to prevent every mass shooting, it's not going to keep every gun out of the hands of a criminal,” Obama said. 'It will potentially save lives and spare families the pain and the extraordinary loss that they suffer as a consequence” of gun violence.

Bloomberg News and Reuters contributed to this report.