Gun-violence plan soon, Obama vows

Congress urged to vote on bans

Firefighters salute as a hearse passes for the funeral procession to the burial of 7-year-old Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim Daniel Gerard Barden, Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. Barden was killed when Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Dec. 14, and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children, before killing himself.(AP Photo/David Goldman)

Firefighters salute as a hearse passes for the funeral procession to the burial of 7-year-old Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim Daniel Gerard Barden, Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. Barden was killed when Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Dec. 14, and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children, before killing himself.(AP Photo/David Goldman)

Thursday, December 20, 2012

— President Barack Obama on Wednesday pledged his administration will draft “concrete proposals” by the end of next month to help stem gun violence in the U.S. and endorsed restrictions on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.

“This time, the words need to lead to action,” Obama said at the White House, where he announced that he’s putting Vice President Joe Biden in charge ofdeveloping a response to the mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that killed 20 children and six adults. “The fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing.”

Obama said there is a growing consensus in the country for restricting military-style weapons and highcapacity ammunition clips and urged Congress to hold votes on such measures early next year. He said that the administration’s review will include firearms regulation as well as mental-health andcultural issues.

Meanwhile, hearses crisscrossed two New England towns, bearing three tiny victims of the Sandy Hook school massacre and a heroic teacher in a seemingly never-ending series of funeral processions.

The president’s new focus on gun violence in the wake of Friday’s shooting highlighted the pressure the White House is under to quickly craft a response to the tragedy. The event has prompted calls for stricter gun control from Democratic lawmakers and gun-control advocates, as representatives of firearms owners argued that limiting weapons won’t provide a solution to violence.

Obama promised to confront the long-standing opposition in Congress that has previously blocked more aggressive gun-control measures.

“I will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this,” Obama said. “It won’t be easy, but that can’t be an excuse not to try.”

Obama, who didn’t push legislation in response to three previous mass shootings over the past four years, bridled at a question about why he didn’t expend political capital on the issue during his first term in office.

“All of us have to do some reflection on how we prioritize what we do here in Washington,” he said. “This should be a wake-up call for all of us.”

He said the proposals would not be just about weapons.

“We are going to need to work on making access to mental-health care at least as easy as access to guns,” he said.

After days of silence since the shooting, the National Rifle Association publicly pledged Tuesday to “offer meaningful contributions” to avoid a repeat of the tragedy. Even so, it signaled to members that it will resist the return of an assault-weapons ban.

As the NRA girds for a legislative confrontation that it has avoided for more than a decade, its allies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere began broadening the discussion toinclude the issues of mental health and violent movies.

Some members of Congress said they planned hearings or legislation, including a renewal of a ban passed in 1994 on certain military-style assault weapons.

The gunman in the school shooting, Adam Lanza, used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle with 30-round magazines as his main weapon.

Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband Dennis was among six Long Island Railroad commuters killed by a gunman in 1993, said the deaths at the school have changed the terms of the debate since the assault-weapons ban was allowed to expire in 2004.

“This time it is different, and we all know it,” she said at a news conference Wednesday at the Capitol. “People are fed up with the gun lobby.”

In an effort to appeal to gun owners, Obama said he believes that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of citizens to own firearms and that most gun owners abide by the law.

“I’m also betting that the majority, the vast majority of responsible law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, lawbreaking few from buying a weapon of war,” he said.

Biden advocated for stricter gun control during his years in the U.S. Senate before becoming vice president. The new task force would be the Obama administration’s first major effort on gun policy.

Obama also gave his team the task of studying ways to improve mental-health services and address cultural influences that glorify violence.The administration will include input from the Departments of Justice, Education, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, as well as advocacy groups and lawmakers, in the process.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a gun-control advocate, said Obama shouldn’t wait to take action until after Biden completes his review.

Obama should use his executive powers including making a recess appointment to fill the vacancy atop the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ordering all federal agencies to send data to the national gun background check database, and directing the Justice Department to step up prosecution of gun traffickers, Bloomberg said.

“There should be no delay in taking these steps,” said Bloomberg, an independent, who said he spoke with Biden before the president’s announcement and was “very encouraged.”

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California announced her own task force, to be led by Rep. Mike Thompson of California.

There has been little indication that Republicans who control the House are willing to accept new restrictions.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that he has no interest in moving any sort of gun-control legislation through the chamber.

“We’re going to take a look at what happened there and what can be done to help avoid it in the future, but gun control is not going to be something that I would support,” Goodlatte told the Roll Call newspaper.

Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., said in an interview that he thought the talk of gun control was “probably a rush to judgment” that missed the real issue.

“I think it’s more of a mental-health problem than a gun problem right now,” he said in an interview. “Traditionally states that enact rigid, inflexible gun laws do not show a corresponding diminishment in crime. I think we need to be careful there. I think we need to look at how the mentally impaired get access to firearms.”

As more victims from the school slaughters were laid to rest, long funeral processions clogged the streets of Newtown, where Christmas trees were turned into memorials and a season that should be a time of joy was marked by heart-wrenching loss.

At least nine funerals and wakes were held Wednesday. Lanza also killed his mother at her home before committing suicide.

At St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, mourners arrived for Caroline Previdi, an auburnhaired 6-year-old with an impish smile, before the service had even ended for Daniel Barden, a 7-year-old who dreamed of being a firefighter.

Hundreds of firefighters formed a long blue line outside the church for little Daniel’s funeral. Two of his relatives work at the Fire Department of New York, and the gaptoothed redhead had wanted to join their ranks one day.

At Caroline’s funeral, mourners wore pink ties and scarves - her favorite color - and remembered her as a Yankees fan who liked to kid around. “Silly Caroline” was how she was known to neighbor Karen Dryer. “She’s just a girl that was always smiling, always wanting others to smile.”

Across town, at Christ the King Lutheran Church, hundreds gathered for the funeral of Charlotte Helen Bacon, many wearing buttons picturing the 6-year-old redhead. Speakers, including her grandfather, told of her loveof wild animals, the family’s golden retriever and the color pink.

And in nearby Stratford, family and friends gathered to say goodbye to Victoria Soto, a first-grade teacher hailed as a hero for trying to shield her students, some of whom managed to escape. Musician Paul Simon, a family friend, performed “The Sounds of Silence” at the service.

In Woodbury, a line of colleagues, students and friends of slain Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, 47, wrapped around the block to pay their respects to the administrator, who rushed the gunman in an effort to stop him and paid with her life. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan attended the service.

Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Lerer, Julie Bykowicz and Jonathan D. Salant of Bloomberg News; by David Klepper, Allen G. Breed, Helen O’Neill, John Christoffersen, Katie Zezima, Pat Eaton-Robb, Michael Melia, Larry Margasak and Joshua Freed of The Associated Press; and by Michael D. Shear of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/20/2012