President Obama announced executive actions on gun control Tuesday, skirting unresolved congressional gridlock that began three years ago following the Newtown elementary school shooting. Obama's measures include background checks for all gun sales, allowing more mental health records to be submitted to the background registry, requirements for reporting lost or stolen weapons, and increasing the number of FBI agents processing background checks, Politico reports.
The more than 20 executive actions Obama has issued are not expected to have a radical impact; rather, many see the president as closing existing loopholes in the system. However, legal challenges are expected immediately from Republican opponents in Washington.
"We are not inherently more prone to violence, but we are the only advanced county on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence with this kind of frequency," Obama said. Quoting Martin Luther King, he added, "We need to feel the fierce urgency of now."
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