Attorney General Loretta Lynch listens as President Barack Obama speaks in the Oval Office on Monday, Jan. 4, during a meeting with law enforcement officials to discuss executive actions the president can take to curb gun violence. | AP Photo Obama rolls out gun control strategy As the president wades into the culture war over guns, he is planning a series of events aimed at containing the political fallout. 
 
 The White House unveiled President Barack Obama’s executive actions on gun violence on Monday as part of a multiday rollout meant to contain the political fallout and to cast Obama as the voice of common sense in a raging culture war. 
 
 “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 me doing," Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting on Monday with his top law enforcement officials. 
 
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 According to the White House, the actions include a more detailed definition of which gun sellers must apply for a federal dealers license — and therefore conduct background checks for all sales, in a bid to close the so-called gun show loophole. The administration is also finalizing a few other rules that were stuck in a bureaucratic backlog, including new requirements for reporting guns lost or stolen in transit, and a measure that would allow more mental health records to be submitted to the federal background check registry by removing patient privacy limits. 
 
 The FBI is also adding 230 agents devoted to processing background checks — a 50 percent increase — as it moves toward automating the system. 
 
 As Obama made his case for moving forward with the new proposals, the juxtaposing imagery on cable TV couldn't have been better for the White House. Within minutes of his remarks, networks aired images illustrating what the president sees as some of the types of problems caused by the proliferation of guns: Texans strapped with AK-47s at a deli counter and armed ranchers occupying a federal refuge in Oregon. 
 
 The other side sees a different picture, with GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump warning that Obama’s actions are just another step on the path to banning guns completely and House Speaker Paul Ryan predicting a “dangerous level of executive overreach.” 
 
 The series of gun-related events this week represents one of Obama's largest pushes on gun control since the collapse of the effort that followed the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting. Although Obama has issued more than 20 executive actions designed to curb gun violence, the country has continued to grapple with mass shootings that have only resulted in increased gun sales. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Obama said he's "confident" that the proposals are "entirely consistent with the Second Amendment." 
 
 The White House is eager to fend off political attacks and exaggerations from gun rights advocates, so the president is preparing an unusual public campaign to explain his moves. On Monday, he met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He will hold a White House ceremony to announce the measures on Tuesday. And on Thursday, Obama partners with CNN for an hourlong town hall to discuss gun violence in prime time. 
 
 Obama has a tricky task: convincing gun control advocates that his actions will make a difference, while reassuring gun-owning Americans that he’s not infringing on their Second Amendment rights and that they should push their members of Congress to pass legislation that would have broader reach. 
 
 “It is my strong belief that for us to get our complete arms around the problem, Congress needs to act,” Obama reiterated Monday. 
 
 “It’s obvious, the way that they are rolling out this issue, that the president and staff understand how politically difficult it’s going to be, and they are demonstrating that they are willing to do everything they can to try and sell it to the American people,” said Jim Manley, a former top communications aide to the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, Harry Reid. 
 
 “Over the years a lot of smart strategists can point to a lot of people who have lost elections over gun control,” Manley said. “The administration is not taking any chances.” 
 
 While Obama cannot unilaterally required universal background checks, top administration officials predicted the new guidelines would sweep in all but the most casual sellers. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will issue new guidelines about what it means to be “engaged in the business” of selling guns, rather than merely selling them as a hobby. It’s part of a bid to step up enforcement of background check rules not only at informal settings like flea markets and gun shows, but also the Internet — including the dark web. 
 
 “Just because you shop for guns with a mouse and not your feet, doesn’t mean you should be able to avoid background checks,” said White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett on a conference call with reporters Monday evening. 
 
 There’s no specific number of annual sales that trigger the need for a license, Jarrett said. Rather, a series of criteria might signal the need to register as a dealer, such as whether the seller creates business cards, sells guns in their original packaging, or re-sells guns shortly after buying them. 
 
 An individual, Jarrett said, “can sell as few as two firearms or make only one or two transactions and be ‘engaged in the business.’” 
 
 The administration could not say how many people would likely be affected by the new measures. 
 
 “This is an industry that is shifting and growing,” Lynch told reporters on the call. “Right now, it’s really an Internet loophole. Gun sales are moving online.” 
 
 Though it’s unclear whether new guidelines will drive more sellers to get licenses, experts have said, any clarifications could help prosecutors convict those who are flouting the spirit of the law. 
 
 But it’s also unclear whether ATF has the resources it needs to step up enforcement. Obama’s FY 2017 budget will call for funding 200 new ATF agents — but that, once again, requires cooperation from a hostile Congress. 
 
 White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the funding request is a challenge to opponents of new gun restrictions who say the administration should enforce existing laws. 
 
 “They should surely support additional resources supporting the laws that are on the books,” he said. The administration is also seeking an additional $500 million for mental health treatment, noting that two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides. 
 
 Another source of uncertainty: How long the new guidance will survive. While some of the president’s actions — requiring background checks for those who buy guns through trusts and requiring licensed dealers to report weapons stolen in transit — the clarification on licenses isn’t a new regulation. That means it can be implemented more quickly because it doesn’t have to go through a public comment period and other bureaucratic delays. But it also means it’d be much easier for a Republicans president to quickly reverse it. 
 
 And that’s exactly what some GOP candidates are vowing to do. While the Obama administration says the guidance is rooted in case law, Republicans were decrying the moves as overreach before they were even announced, blasting Obama’s forthcoming actions as lawless and subversive. 
 
 Trump assailed the president first thing Monday morning, saying that on the current track, it would soon become impossible for Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights to carry firearms. 
 
 “Well, pretty soon, you won’t be able to get guns. I mean, it’s another step in the way of not getting guns,” the Republican presidential candidate told CNN’s “New Day.” “And, you know, the one thing that is just, before we even get to that, is the executive order concept.” 
 
 Obama, Trump continued, should be negotiating an agreement with all sides to work out a solution rather than issuing an executive order. 
 
 “You know, it’s supposed to be negotiated; you’re supposed to cajole, get people in a room; you’re supposed to deal with them, you have Republicans, you have Democrats, you have all these people that get elected to do this stuff, and you’re supposed to get together and pass a law,” Trump continued. 
 
 
 
 GOP protests aren't limited to the campaign trail. Ryan, while acknowledging that the details of the plan are still under wraps, said in a statement Monday that Obama is "at minimum subverting the legislative branch, and potentially overturning its will." 
 
 "His proposals to restrict gun rights were debated by the United States Senate, and they were rejected," the speaker said, in reference to the failed push for more gun laws in the wake of the 2012 Newtown shooting. "No president should be able to reverse legislative failure by executive fiat, not even incrementally. The American people deserve a president who will respect their constitutional rights — all of them. This is a dangerous level of executive overreach, and the country will not stand for it." 
 
 Marco Rubio, meanwhile, used a speech in Hooksett, New Hampshire, on Monday morning to warn that executive actions would restrict the rights of "law-abiding citizens, not the criminals or terrorists who target them." 
 
 "The president has not even attempted to point to a single mass shooting these actions would have prevented, because there isn’t one," the Florida senator added. 
 
 Even as gun control advocates maintained that the onus on Congress to enact major changes, they’ve been pelting the president with proposals for more things he can do. There are still many items left on their lists, but they praised Monday’s package. 
 
 Chelsea Parsons of the Center for American Progress called it “a significant step forward toward making progress to reduce gun violence in this country.” 
 
 Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has poured considerable money into campaigns nationwide through his group Everytown to Prevent Gun Violence, said Obama was “listening to the voices of everyday Americans, who are helping to advance common sense gun safety policies in cities and states around the country." 
 
 The firearms lobby, including the National Rifle Association, has been reluctant to comment before the details of Obama's plans emerge. But gun control groups decried what they called "mistruths" spread by pro-gun groups. 
 
 “We know that the corporate gun lobby, they’ve already started spreading mistruths, distorting reality, and I think the desire from the gun violence prevention movement is to make sure that people aren’t confused, and people aren’t duped into thinking this is something it isn’t,” said Pia Carusone, a co-founder of the gun control group Americans for Responsible Solutions, with former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords. 
 
 Five years ago Friday, Giffords survived a shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that left six dead. 
 
 Eliza Collins, Nick Gass and David Pittman contributed to this report. ||||| After high-profile mass shootings, President Barack Obama has urged the American people to call on Congress to pass measures that would restrict access to guns and, hopefully, reduce gun violence. But after multiple pleas, Congress hasn't acted, even after the grisly mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. 
 
 So Obama is now acting on his own — with executive actions. 
 
 "Every single year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns," Obama said at a press conference on Tuesday. "We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency." 
 
 Obama met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Monday to consider what he can do without congressional legislation to reduce gun violence in America, which kills many more people in the US than other developed nations. In a press conference after the meeting, White House officials announced a plan they had been working on for months behind the scenes to address gun violence. 
 
 The changes attempt to tighten — but don't close — what's widely (but misleadingly) known as the "gun show loophole," as well as increase the efficiency of the federal background check system to avoid cases from falling through. The executive actions will also take smaller steps, ranging from improving the tracking of lost or stolen guns to encouraging technological improvements that will, in theory, make firearms safer. 
 
 This would not be the first time Obama has taken executive action on guns. In 2013, after Congress failed to pass gun control legislation following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Obama signed 23 executive actions and then a few follow-up actions that generally tightened the background check system. 
 
 But Obama's latest actions appear to be the boldest, touching on one of the longest-running issues with federal gun control laws and a broader hot-button debate about what to do about America's extraordinary levels of gun violence. 
 
 There are risks to Obama acting without congressional approval. Critics of the administration have already suggested that they will challenge new executive actions in court. Not getting legislation in the books also means that a President Ted Cruz (or Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, and so on) could unilaterally reverse Obama's actions. Shortly before the announcement of the plan, a congressional Republican also threatened to block funding for the Justice Department to stop the executive actions. 
 
 The Obama administration has pushed on anyway, arguing in an email, "The president has made clear the most impactful way to address the crisis of gun violence in our country is for Congress to pass some common sense gun safety measures. But the president has also said he's fully aware of the unfortunate political realities in this Congress. That is why he has asked his team to scrub existing legal authorities to see if there's any additional action we can take administratively." 
 
 Obama is also taking his call for more actions to the American people: On Thursday, he's participating in a CNN town hall about guns. 
 
 What Obama's executive actions on guns will do 
 
 Here's what the Obama administration plans to do: 
 
 The federal government will issue guidance that will narrow who can sell guns without a federal license, based on an evaluation of the circumstances surrounding individual gun sales. The idea is to make enforcement of existing federal laws stricter so fewer people — whether gun sellers or buyers — take advantage of the "gun show loophole." 
 
 The idea is to make enforcement of existing federal laws stricter so fewer people — whether gun sellers or buyers — take advantage of the "gun show loophole." The FBI will hire more than 230 more people to help run background checks — an increase of more than 50 percent to the current staff. Lynch said this was in part needed to keep up with rising demand. "We're looking to improve the efficiency and response time of the system," she said. 
 
 The government will also require background checks for people who try to buy restricted firearms through a legal entity, such as a corporation or trust. People were able to avoid background checks in the past through these entities. 
 
 The Department of Health and Human Services will finalize a rule regarding health record privacy laws to remove barriers to states providing mental health records to the background check system. 
 
 The administration will enforce tighter rules for reporting guns that are lost or stolen on their way to the buyer to make it easier for law enforcement to track down missing firearms. 
 
 Federal agencies will encourage and fund more research into technologies that can make guns safer, largely to reduce the risk of accidents. 
 
 In addition to these measures, the administration will continue pushing Congress to pass tighter gun control laws, and to direct more funds to enforcing existing gun laws and to mental health treatment. 
 
 Federal background checks are rife with loopholes 
 
 Obama's executive actions are a small but significant tweak to existing laws. In the US, there are several restrictions in federal law to buying a gun. Generally, the idea is that Americans who are underage, have serious criminal backgrounds, or are mentally ill should not be able to purchase a firearm. 
 
 Whether someone falls into any of these categories is typically evaluated through a background check: Under the federal system, licensed dealers are required to run these checks before they can sell someone a gun, typically by having the FBI check a person's criminal record, mental health history, and other factors. If someone fails a background check, he or she can't legally buy a gun. 
 
 But the system is riddled with loopholes. The most well-known way to bypass background checks is the private sales loophole: If someone purchases a gun from a private seller, such as a friend or family member, no gun background check is required. This is often mischaracterized as the "gun show loophole," under the assumption that people can simply go to a gun show and buy a gun without getting a background check. But licensed dealers at gun shows still have to carry out a background check. The actual loophole is that someone can meet with a private seller at a gun show — or, increasingly, over the internet — and buy a firearm from that person without a background check. In other words, the gun show doesn't create a loophole; the private sale does. 
 
 An equally big problem is that the system of background checks is notoriously underfunded, understaffed, and underresourced. Although there are no waiting periods under federal law, a check that turns out inconclusive can be extended for three business days. But these three days are a maximum for the government — and sometimes the three days lapse without the FBI completing its check, and a buyer can at that point purchase a gun without the completed check. 
 
 The FBI admitted that something like this happened with the shooter who killed nine people at a predominantly black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015: That shooter should have failed a background check for a handgun purchase after admitting to illegally possessing controlled substances in the past, but the FBI examiner did not obtain the shooter's record in time. 
 
 The federal background check system also largely relies on states' reports, including some data for mental health history and criminal records. Since states have their own budget issues to deal with, or may simply ideologically oppose the idea of background checks, states' noncompliance can create yet another way the system can fail to stop someone who shouldn't buy a gun from obtaining one. (State laws treat guns in a wide variety of ways; Slate has a good rundown of the differences.) 
 
 Obama's executive actions don't completely close any of these loopholes and faults in existing law, including the "gun show loophole," but they do take steps to tighten current restrictions on firearms and ensure that federal officials can actually enforce the law that's on the books. 
 
 Following the mass shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School in which a gunman killed 20 children, six adults, and himself, Congress was pressured to pass a bill that would have tightened the private sales loophole and potentially taken other steps toward restricting access to guns. But negotiations over the bill eventually fell apart, leading Obama to act on his own. 
 
 Obama is dealing with a Congress that won't act on gun control 
 
 It can be difficult to understand how the US hasn't done much to combat gun violence for years. America is unique not just in terms of gun violence but in terms of gun ownership — the country has by far the highest rates of gun ownership in the world. The research clearly shows that more guns mean more gun violence, so all those guns are leading to more deaths. And the public widely supports closing the loopholes in the law. Yet even with this research and public support, and despite thousands of mass shootings during Obama's time in office, Congress has decided not to act. 
 
 The reasons for this are complicated, but they're generally rooted in America's strong gun culture and the powerful lobby behind that culture. 
 
 The single most powerful political organization when it comes to guns is, undoubtedly, the National Rifle Association, which has an enormous stranglehold over conservative politics in America. 
 
 Anytime there's an attempt to impose new forms of gun control, the NRA rallies gun owners and other opponents of gun control to kill such proposals. These gun owners make up a minority of the population: anywhere from 34 to 43 percent of households, depending on which survey one uses. But that population is a large and active enough constituency, particularly within the Republican base, to make many legislators fear that a poor grade from the NRA will end their careers. 
 
 As a result, conservative media and politicians take the NRA's support — especially the coveted A-to-F ratings the organization gives out — very, very seriously. Sometimes politicians will go to absurd lengths to show their support for gun rights. For example, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last year starred in a video, from IJ Review, in which he cooked bacon with — this is not a joke — a machine gun. 
 
 Although several campaigns have popped up over the years to try to counteract the NRA, none has come close to capturing the kind of influential hold that the organization has. Some of the groups — such as StopTheNRA.com, in part funded by Democratic donor Ken Lerer — didn't even last a few years. 
 
 Kristin Goss, author of The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know, said this might be changing. She argued that newer gun control groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and Americans for Responsible Solutions are much more organized, are better funded, and have more grassroots support than gun control groups have had in her 20 years covering this issue. As a result, Democrats at the state and federal level seem much more willing to discuss gun control. 
 
 But supporters of gun control face a huge obstacle: far more passionate opponents. As Republican strategist Grover Norquist said in 2000, "The question is intensity versus preference. You can always get a certain percentage to say they are in favor of some gun controls. But are they going to vote on their 'control' position?" Probably not, Norquist suggested, "but for that 4-5 percent who care about guns, they will vote on this." 
 
 What's behind that passion? Goss, who's also a political scientist at Duke University, suggested it's a sense of tangible loss — gun owners feel like the government is going to take their guns and rights. In comparison, gun control advocates are motivated by more abstract notions of reducing gun violence — although, Goss noted, the victims of mass shootings and their families have begun to put a face on these policies by engaging more actively in advocacy work, which could make the gun control movement feel more relatable. 
 
 There is an exception at the state level, where legislatures have passed laws imposing (and relaxing) restrictions on guns. In 2014, for instance, Washington state and Oregon passed laws ensuring all guns have to go through background checks, including those sold between individuals. "There's a lot more going on than Congress," Goss said. "In blue states, gun laws are getting stricter. And in red states, in some cases, the gun laws are getting looser." 
 
 Still, the NRA's influence and its army of supporters push many of America's legislators, particularly at the federal level and red states, away from gun control measures — even though some countries that passed these policies have seen a lot of success with them. From Obama's perspective, that forced him to act alone to get something done on guns. 
 
 Universal background checks would help, but they likely wouldn't bring gun violence down to other developed countries' levels 
 
 Although Obama's executive action will help slightly restrict access to guns, it won't come anywhere close to bringing levels of gun violence down to the levels of other developed countries. Neither would the Senate bill that ultimately failed. The reason for that is simple: The problem is, fundamentally, that the US has a lot of guns, so any measure that doesn't significantly reduce the number of guns will ultimately fall short of fully addressing violence. 
 
 The research on this is very clear. Reviews of the evidence by the Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Control Research Center have concluded that more guns lead to more gun violence. Other factors, such as socioeconomic issues, obviously contribute to violence, but guns are the one issue that makes America unique relative to other developed countries in comparable socioeconomic circumstances. 
 
 Take, for instance, this chart, from a 2007 study by Harvard researchers, showing the correlation between statewide firearm homicide victimization rates and household gun ownership after controlling for robbery rates: 
 
 A more recent study from 2013, led by a Boston University School of Public Health researcher, reached similar conclusions: After controlling for multiple variables, the study found that a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlated with a roughly 0.9 percent rise in the firearm homicide rate at the state level. 
 
 This holds up around the world. As Vox's Zack Beauchamp explained, a breakthrough analysis in 1999 by UC Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins found that the US does not, contrary to the old conventional wisdom, have more crime in general than other Western industrial nations. Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that's driven in large part by the prevalence of guns. 
 
 "A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar," Zimring and Hawkins wrote. "A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London." 
 
 How can the country address this? The research shows tightening existing gun control measures in the US would help. But as Harvard's David Hemenway told Vox's Dylan Matthews, it would likely take decades for the mild gun control measures proposed in the US to have a significant impact. "It's all speculation," Hemenway said. "I suspect it would take a while (decades) for the US to get down to gun violence levels of other developed countries because a) we have so many guns which are durable, and b) we have a gun culture — we tend to use guns more often in more situations than citizens of other developed countries." 
 
 To have a more immediate impact, then, the US would have to find a way to quickly remove the number of guns in circulation. Other countries have actually done that: In Australia, after a 1996 mass shooting, lawmakers passed new restrictions on guns and imposed a mandatory buyback program that essentially confiscated people's guns, seizing at least 650,000 firearms. 
 
 According to one review of the evidence by Harvard researchers, Australia's firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 percent in the seven years after the law passed, and its firearm suicide rate fell by 57 percent. Although it's hard to gauge how much of this was driven by the buyback program, researchers argue it likely played some role: "First, the drop in firearm deaths was largest among the type of firearms most affected by the buyback. Second, firearm deaths in states with higher buyback rates per capita fell proportionately more than in states with lower buyback rates." 
 
 Still, similar measures would be very difficult to pass in America, due to the strength of gun culture and the gun lobby in the US — pushing Obama to act without Congress with a much smaller policy tweak. 
 
 Watch: America's biggest gun problem is the one we don't talk about ||||| 3 things Obama's plan will do on guns and 3 things it won't 
 
 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share Here are three things President Obama's gun plan will and won't do. The White House rolled out a batch of narrowly tailored administrative actions that may have more to do with lawyers than guns. USA TODAY 
 
 If Americans were waiting for President Obama to use his executive authority to totally shut the "gun show loophole" or ban assault weapons, they may be disappointed by the initiative the White House unveiled Monday. The White House instead rolled out a batch of narrowly tailored administrative actions that may have more to do with lawyers than guns. 
 
 Here are three things that are in the package (according to the White House fact sheet): 
 
 • Hiring more people to run the FBI background check system, so the government can be "processing background checks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." 
 
 • Requesting from Congress an additional $500 million to increase access to mental health care. 
 
 • Clarifying that people selling guns over the Internet can still be required to conduct background checks on buyers if they are "engaged in the business" of selling guns, not just a hobbyist. 
 
 And here's the stuff discussed in the days before the announcement that is NOT in the package: 
 
 • A requirement that every gun sale in the country is proceeded by a criminal background check. 
 
 • A ban on gun sales to people on terrorist "no-fly" lists. 
 
 • A ban on large capacity magazines that hold a lot of bullets. 
 
 The reason for the difference is that the administration does not believe it has authority under existing laws to do the bigger stuff. So they are using administrative actions to squeeze the stuff out of the corners of existing laws. 
 
 Here are the details of the initiative from the White House. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1OJBDfP ||||| Speaking at the White House on Thursday evening, a visibly frustrated and emotional President Obama remarked on the deadly shooting at a community college in Oregon. (AP) 
 
 Speaking at the White House on Thursday evening, a visibly frustrated and emotional President Obama remarked on the deadly shooting at a community college in Oregon. (AP) 
 
 In response to the latest mass shooting during his presidency, President Obama is seriously considering circumventing Congress with his executive authority and imposing new background-check requirements for buyers who purchase weapons from high-volume gun dealers. 
 
 Under the proposed rule change, dealers who exceed a certain number of sales each year would be required to obtain a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and perform background checks on potential buyers. 
 
 As the president heads to Roseburg, Ore., on Friday to comfort the survivors and families of those killed in last week’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College, the political calculus around his most vexing domestic policy issue is shifting once again. 
 
 After the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., claimed the lives of 20 students and six staff members, Obama asked Vice President Biden to devise a list of policy proposals in response, and on Jan. 26, 2013, the president announced 23 executive actions ranging from restarting federal research into the causes of gun violence to providing parity for mental health coverage under private insurance plans. He pushed for legislation mandating universal background checks on gun sales, an effort that failed in the Senate in April 2013. In August that year, Obama closed two gun-sale loopholes through executive authority, subjecting gun purchases by corporations and trusts to background checks and banning almost all re-imports of military surplus firearms to private entities. 
 
 [Guns, race remain Obama’s biggest missed opportunities] 
 
 View Graphic ‘Our lives are shattered beyond repair’: The victims of the Oregon college shooting 
 
 In the wake of last week’s tragedy, Obama said he had asked his team “to scrub what kinds of authorities do we have to enforce the laws that we have in place more effectively to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.” 
 
 “We are hopeful we can find a way to do this,” said one senior administration official, who noted that lawyers were still working through details to ensure that the rule could pass legal muster. “It’s a lot more clear today than it was a year ago how to work this out.” 
 
 Nine days before a shooter opened fire on the Umpqua Community College campus, former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and her husband, Mark Kelly, were at the White House to reiterate a long-standing request that those private dealers who sell a sizable number of guns conduct background checks on buyers. The proposed rule change would clarify what it means to be “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. 
 
 In a meeting with Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, Giffords and Kelly, who became gun-control activists after Giffords was seriously wounded in a mass shooting in 2011, were pushing for a regulatory change that administration officials considered — but then shelved — nearly two years ago. 
 
 The proposed executive action aims to impose background checks on individuals who buy from dealers who sell a significant number of guns each year. The current federal statute dictates that those who are “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms need to obtain a federal license — and, therefore, conduct background checks — but exempts anyone “who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.” 
 
 White House officials drafted the proposal in late 2013 to apply to those dealers who sell at least 50 guns annually, after Congress had rejected legislation that would have expanded background checks more broadly to private sellers. While the White House Office of Legal Counsel and then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. initially concluded the regulation was legally defensible, according to several individuals involved in the discussions, some federal lawyers remained concerned that setting an arbitrary numerical threshold could leave the rule vulnerable to a challenge. 
 
 ATF officials, moreover, objected that it would be hard to enforce and that it was unclear how many sellers would be affected by the change. “Everyone realized it would be hugely politically controversial,” said one individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions. 
 
 1 of 27 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × One gunman, nine victims dead: Scenes from the attack, aftermath View Photos Multiple casualties and deaths occurred after shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore Caption Multiple casualties and deaths occurred after shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. An undated photo of gunman Chris Harper Mercer from his MySpace page. Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton listed the idea of changing the definition of who qualifies as a gun dealer as one of her top proposals to address gun violence. 
 
 [Can Hillary Clinton’s background checks proposal actually work?] 
 
 The aides to Biden who worked most intently on the background-checks proposal in 2013 have since left the administration, but it has resurfaced periodically: Obama discussed the idea with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch during a July 9 Oval Office meeting, aides said, three weeks after nine African American parishioners were gunned down in Charleston, S.C. Now, according to administration officials, a group of West Wing staffers are working in concert on this and other possible executive actions. 
 
 Pia Carusone, a senior adviser at Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group Giffords and Kelly founded, declined to discuss details surrounding private White House meetings. 
 
 “Over the last few years, Gabby, Mark and ARS staff have met with various administration officials to discuss how we can work together to address America’s gun violence problem,” Carusone said by e-mail. “Many potential solutions have been discussed in conversations that have included the president, vice president and their teams.” 
 
 Arkadi Gerney, senior vice president at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, said tightening the definition of who is “engaged in the business” of selling guns “is a meaningful but modest step towards the goal of ensuring that all gun sales involve a background check.” 
 
 National Rifle Association spokeswoman Jennifer Baker, by contrast, said any change was unnecessary and could “ensnare” people not intended to be covered by the law, such as a widow selling off her late husband’s gun collection. “People who repeatedly sell large volumes of firearms are already covered in the current statute because they are already defined as ‘engaged in the business,’ ” she said. 
 
 Some activists, including those from the faith and community organizing group Metro Industrial Areas Foundation say Obama could be much bolder with his executive authority. On Thursday, the group, which is pushing the president to leverage the federal government’s purchasing power with gun manufacturers, held a rally in Lafayette Square to demand Obama call in industry leaders and insist that they develop safer technology and crack down on the stores that sell a disproportionate number of guns used in crimes. 
 
 “We have traveled here from across the nation to challenge you to stop whining about the power you don’t have, and start acting with the power you do have,” said Bishop Douglas Miles, who is on the group’s leadership team and serves as pastor of Koinonia Baptist Church in Baltimore. 
 
 Last week, Obama said that “this is something we should politicize” and that every American had “to for a while, be a single-issue voter” when it came to tightening the nation’s gun laws. 
 
 Gun-control activists have made significant political headway on the state level since the Newtown shooting. In the past year, they prevailed on background check fights in Washington state and Oregon; laws to carry concealed weapons without a permit were enacted in three states but defeated in 15. According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 55 percent of gun laws enacted so far this year loosened restrictions rather than tightened them, and many were quite minor. In 2012, by contrast, 72 percent of all enacted gun laws loosened restrictions. 
 
 “The gun lobby has done a very good job of tying up Washington, D.C.,” said John Feinblatt, president of the advocacy group Everytown. “It can’t tie up the people, and cannot, in fact, tie up state legislatures.” 
 
 While polling shows between 85 and 92 percent of Americans support expanding background checks, the broader issue of gun rights remains fraught. In Roseburg, where many have chafed at the administration’s gun policies, opinion remains sharply divided over whether Obama should even come to offer his condolences to victims’ families. 
 
 “Half the people in Roseburg say it’s wonderful, the other half say he shouldn’t show up,” said Earl Skonberg, a local gun owner who engages in sport shooting.
– So just what are the 23 executive orders President Obama signed today as part of his plan to curb gun violence? Dave Weigel at Slate runs them down, and here's a sampling from him and AP: "Require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system." Order "tougher penalties for people who lie on background checks." Have the attorney general "review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks." Direct the Centers for Disease Control "to research the causes and prevention of gun violence." (This one is getting a lot of attention. See here.) Nominate an ATF director. "Require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations." Give "schools flexibility to use federal grant money to improve school safety, such as by hiring school resource officers." Read Weigel's full list here. Or see details on each from the White House itself here. These are separate from the list of proposed laws Obama hopes to push through Congress starting next week—reinstating the ban on assault weapons, limiting high-capacity ammunition magazines, closing loopholes on gun sales, and more, reports the New York Times.