text: Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. 
   
   The second Joe Biden suggested that the White House might enact "executive actions, executive orders" on guns, the gun lobby smashed the glass and hit the alarm. The Drudge Report illustrated Biden's quote with portraits of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, who (among arguably worse things) restricted gun rights. There were surprisingly few questions from Republicans about what the executive actions might actually be. 
   
   
   
   David Weigel David Weigel is a reporter for the Washington Post. 
   
   Here's the list, via the White House. (I did not engage in complication reporter-fu to get this. It's the general fact sheet.) 
   
   
   
   1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system. 
   
   2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system. 
   
   3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system. 
   
   4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks. 
   
   5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun. 
   
   6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers. 
   
   7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign. 
   
   8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission). 
   
   9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. 
   
   10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement. 
   
   11. Nominate an ATF director. 
   
   12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations. 
   
   13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime. 
   
   14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. 
   
   
   
   15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies 
   
   
   
   16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes. 
   
   17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities. 
   
   18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers. 
   
   19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education. 
   
   20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover. 
   
   21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges. 
   
   22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations. 
   
   23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health. 
   
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   And these are the legislative ideas -- i.e., the ones the president wants to push through Congress, starting with the more pliable Senate. 
   
   Require criminal background checks for all gun sales. (a.k.a. closing the "gun show loophole.") 
   
   Reinstate and strengthen the assault weapons ban. 
   
   Restore the 10-round limit on ammunition magazines. 
   
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   Protect police by finishing the job of getting rid of armor-piercing bullets. 
   
   Give law enforcement additional tools to prevent and prosecute gun crime. 
   
   End the freeze on gun violence research. 
   
   Make our schools safer with more school resource officers and school counselors, safer climates, and better emergency response plans. 
   
   Help ensure that young people get the mental health treatment they need. ||||| Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images. 
   
   NBC News flags one of the 23 executive actions taken by President Obama this afternoon as part of his push for stricter gun control in the United States: In short, the president has effectively lifted what has been a virtual 17-year ban on basic research into the public health effects of gun violence. But while the CDC will have the freedom to resume work on that topic, it's still unclear whether it will have the funding to do so. 
   
   
   
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   Here's the relevant part from the White House fact sheet, under action No. 14, titled clearly as "Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence": 
   
   
   
   Conduct research on the causes and prevention of gun violence, including links between video games, media images, and violence: The President is issuing a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control and scientific agencies to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. It is based on legal analysis that concludes such research is not prohibited by any appropriations language. The CDC will start immediately by assessing existing strategies for preventing gun violence and identifying the most pressing research questions, with the greatest potential public health impact. And the Administration is calling on Congress to provide $10 million for the CDC to conduct further research, including investigating the relationship between video games, media images, and violence. 
   
   Better understand how and when firearms are used in violent death: To research gun violence prevention, we also need better data. When firearms are used in homicides or suicides, the National Violent Death Reporting System collects anonymous data, including the type of firearm used, whether the firearm was stored loaded or locked, and details on youth gun access. Congress should invest an additional $20 million to expand this system from the 18 states currently participating to all 50 states, helping Americans better understand how and when firearms are used in a violent death and informing future research and prevention strategies. 
   
   As you can see in that first graph, Obama is asking Congress to pony up $10 million to fund said research. While it's unclear whether lawmakers will give him the cash he wants, regardless it appears as though those at the CDC will have the freedom to examine something that they've turned something of a blind eye to since 1996. NBC explains the back story: 
   
   From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the CDC conducted original, peer-reviewed research into gun violence, including questions such as whether people who had guns in their homes gained protection from the weapons. (The answer, researchers found, was no. Homes with guns had a nearly three times greater risk of homicide and a nearly five times greater risk of suicide than those without, according to a 1993 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.) 
   
   But in 1996, the NRA, with the help of Congressional leaders, moved to suppress such information and to block future federal research into gun violence, [Dr. Mark Rosenberg, president of the Task Force for Global Health and director of the CDC's Center for Injury Prevention and Control from 1994 to 1999] said. 
   
   The statute that governs the agency's funding stipulates that none of its federal funding can be used "to advocate or promote gun control." While that never specifically blocked research into gun violence, the language was broad enough to give CDC officials pause and serve as a deterrent to inquisitive researchers. [Paul D. Thacker, a former Senate investigator, wrote about the NRA's campaign to shut down studies at the CDC in a piece for Slate back in December. You can read that here.] 
   
   
   
   "CDC overreacted to that statement and became more reluctant to fund anything dealing with guns, even the traditional epidemiological research, so there was a chilling effect," Stephen Teret, director for the Center for Law and the Public’s Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, explained to NBC. 
   
   Obama's executive order, however, should bring an end to those fears. "[R]esearch on gun violence is not advocacy; it is critical public health research that gives all Americans information they need," reads the White House fact sheet. ||||| President Barack Obama on Wednesday launched the most sweeping effort to curb U.S. gun violence in nearly two decades, announcing a $500 million package that sets up a fight with Congress over bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines just a month after a shooting in Connecticut killed 20 school children. 
   
   President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, left, hugs eight-year-old letter writer Grant Fritz during a news conference on proposals to reduce gun violence, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013,... (Associated Press) 
   
   President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, talks about proposals to reduce gun violence, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington.... (Associated Press) 
   
   President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, law enforcement officials, lawmakers and children who wrote the president about gun violence following last month's shooting at an elementary... (Associated Press) 
   
   President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, and children who wrote the president about gun violence following last month's shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., signs... (Associated Press) 
   
   President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, talks about proposals to reduce gun violence, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington.... (Associated Press) 
   
   President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, gestures as he talks about proposals to reduce gun violence, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House... (Associated Press) 
   
   President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, left, gets a high-five from eight-year-old letter writer Grant Fritz during a news conference on proposals to reduce gun violence, Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
   
   In this photo made with a fisheye lens on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, five used military style rifles are all that is available in the rack that usually has over twenty new models for sale at Duke's Sport... (Associated Press) 
   
   President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, law enforcement officials, lawmakers and children who wrote the president about gun violence following last month's shooting at an elementary... (Associated Press) 
   
   FILE - In a Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013 file photo, gun owners discuss a potential sale of an AR-15, during the 2013 Rocky Mountain Gun Show at the South Towne Expo Center in Sandy, Utah. Nearly six in 10... (Associated Press) 
   
   New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders applaud after Cuomo signed New York's Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act into law during a ceremony in the Red Room at the Capitol on Tuesday,... (Associated Press) 
   
   Jimmy Greene, left, kisses his wife Nelba Marquez-Greene as he holds a portrait of their daughter, Sandy Hook School shooting victim Ana Marquez-Greene at a news conference at Edmond Town Hall in Newtown,... (Associated Press) 
   
   In this photo made with a fisheye lens, customers line up at the gun counter at Duke's Sport Shop on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in New Castle, Pa. President Barack Obama is expected to announce measures... (Associated Press) 
   
   From left to right: Hinna Zeejah, 8, Taejah Goode, 10, Julia Stokes, 11, and Grant Fritz, 8, who wrote letters to President Barack Obama about the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., watch as Obama signs... (Associated Press) 
   
   Obama signed 23 executive actions, which require no congressional approval. But the president, speaking at the White House, acknowledged the most sweeping, effective actions must be taken by lawmakers. 
   
   "To make a real and lasting difference, Congress must act," Obama said. "And Congress must act soon." He added, "I'll put everything that I've got into this." 
   
   The president appealed to the nation's conscience, but his announcement promises to lead to a bitter fight with a powerful pro-gun lobby that has long warned supporters that Obama wanted to take away their guns. 
   
   The U.S. has the highest rate of gun ownership of any country in the world, and pro-gun groups see any move on gun restrictions as an offense against the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Critics counter that the country's founding fathers never could have foreseen assault weapons more than two centuries ago, when guns were intended for the common, not individual, defense, guns were often stored in community areas and rifles fired one laborious shot at a time. 
   
   "This is the land of the free and the home of the brave, and always will be," Obama said, acknowledging the right to possess and bear firearms. "But we've also long realized ... that with rights come responsibilities." 
   
   Obama was joined by children who wrote him letters about gun violence in the weeks following the Connecticut shooting. Families of the children killed in the shooting, as well as survivors, were also in the audience. 
   
   Emotions have been high since the Connecticut shooting, which Obama has called the worst day of his presidency. He largely ignored the issue of gun violence during his first term but appears willing to stake his second term on it now. He'll have to contend with looming fiscal issues that have threatened to push whatever he proposes aside, at least for a while. 
   
   Gun control advocates also worry that opposition from the powerful National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress will be too great to overcome. 
   
   "Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation," the NRA said in a statement after Obama's announcement. "Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy." 
   
   The NRA also released an online video Tuesday that called Obama an "elitist hypocrite" for having armed Secret Service agents protect his daughters at school while not committing to installing armed guards in all schools. The NRA insists that the best way to prevent more mass shootings is to give more "good guys" guns. 
   
   The White House called the NRA video "repugnant and cowardly." 
   
   Obama's proposals are aimed at gun violence in general, not just mass shootings. He said more than 900 Americans have been killed by guns in the month since the Connecticut shooting. 
   
   "Every day we wait, the number will keep growing," he said. 
   
   The public appears receptive to stronger federal action on guns. Nearly six in 10 Americans want stricter gun laws in the aftermath of the Connecticut shooting, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. Three-quarters of Americans said they reacted to the Connecticut shooting with deep anger, while 54 percent said they felt deeply ashamed it could happen in the United States. 
   
   The poll also shows 51 percent said they believed laws limiting gun ownership infringe on the public's right to bear firearms. 
   
   White House officials, seeking to avoid setting the president up for failure, have emphasized that no single measure _ even an assault weapons ban _ would solve the scourge of gun violence. But without such a ban, or other sweeping Congress-approved measures, it's unclear whether executive actions alone can make any noticeable difference. 
   
   The office of the most powerful Republican in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, signaled no urgency to act on the proposals. "House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said. "And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that." 
   
   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a fellow Democrat, called Obama's package "thoughtful recommendations" and said the Senate would consider legislation addressing gun violence early this year. 
   
   The president asked Congress to renew the ban on high-grade, military-style assault weapons that was first signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994 but expired in 2004. Obama also called for limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds or fewer, and he proposed a federal statute to stop purchases of guns by buyers who are acting for others. 
   
   The president also called for a focus on universal background checks. Some 40 percent of gun sales take place without background checks, including those by private sellers at gun shows or over the Internet, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. 
   
   The president's framework is based on recommendations from Vice President Joe Biden, who led a wide-ranging task force on gun violence. Beyond the gun control measures, Biden also gave Obama suggestions for improving mental health care and addressing violent images in video games, movies and television. 
   
   The president also called for improvements in school safety, including putting 1,000 police officers in schools. 
   
   States and cities have been moving against gun violence as well. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday signed into law the toughest gun control law in the U.S., and the first since the Connecticut shooting. The law includes a tougher assault-weapons ban and provisions to try to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people who make threats. 
   
   The NRA criticized the bill, saying in a statement, "These gun control schemes have failed in the past and will have no impact on public safety and crime." 
   
   In Washington, it's unclear how much political capital Obama will use in pressing for congressional action. 
   
   The White House and Congress will soon be consumed by three looming fiscal deadlines, each of which is expected to be contentious. And the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has warned the White House that it will be at least three months before the chamber considers gun legislation. 
   
   Congress, in any case, can move slowly. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday he'll begin hearings in two weeks on gun safety proposals. Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, a gun owner, said he envisions a series of hearings examining violence in popular media and how to keep guns safe, among other topics. 
   
   Leahy's plan could take more time than Obama has urged. 
   
   Obama's long list of executive orders includes the following: 
   
   _ Ordering tougher penalties for people who lie on background checks and requiring federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system. 
   
   _ Ending limits that make it more difficult for the government to research gun violence, such as gathering data on guns that fall into criminal hands. 
   
   _ Requiring federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. 
   
   _ Giving schools flexibility to use federal grant money to improve school safety, such as by hiring school resource officers. 
   
   _ Giving communities grants to institute programs to keep guns away from people who shouldn't have them. 
   
   ___ 
   
   Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Erica Werner, Ken Ritter, Josh Lederman Michael Gormley and Michael Virtanen contributed to this report. ||||| The White House is planning a multifaceted effort to sell its plans, including speeches around the country by the president and vice president and concerted lobbying by interest groups to influence several dozen lawmakers from both parties seen as critical to passage. The White House created a Web page with video testimonials from victims of gun violence and a sign-up for supporters to help advocate the president’s plan. 
   
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   “I tell you, the only way we can change is if the American people demand it,” Mr. Obama said. “And, by the way, that doesn’t just mean from certain parts of the country. We’re going to need voices in those areas, in those Congressional districts where the tradition of gun ownership is strong, to speak up and to say this is important. It can’t just be the usual suspects.” 
   
   The N.R.A. made clear that it was ready for a fight. Even before the president’s speech, it broadcast a provocative video calling Mr. Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for opposing more armed guards in schools while his daughters had Secret Service protection. After the speech the group said it would work to secure schools, fix the mental health system and prosecute criminals but criticized the president’s other proposals. “Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation,” the N.R.A. said in a statement. “Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected, and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.” 
   
   Mr. Obama’s plan included 4 major legislative proposals and 23 executive actions that he initiated on his own authority to bolster enforcement of existing laws, improve the nation’s database used for background checks and otherwise make it harder for criminals and people with mental illness to get guns. 
   
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   Mr. Obama asked Congress to reinstate and strengthen a ban on the sale and production of assault weapons that passed in 1994 and expired in 2004. He also called for a ban on the sale and production of magazines with more than 10 rounds, like those used in Newtown and other mass shootings. Mr. Obama’s plan would require criminal background checks for all gun sales, closing the longstanding loophole that allows buyers to avoid screening by purchasing weapons from unlicensed sellers at gun shows or in private sales. Nearly 40 percent of all gun sales are exempt from the system. 
   
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   He also proposed legislation banning the possession or transfer of armor-piercing bullets and cracking down on “straw purchasers,” those who pass background checks and then forward guns to criminals or others forbidden from purchasing them. 
   
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   For Mr. Obama, the plan represented a political pivot. While he has always expressed support for an assault weapons ban, he has made no real effort to pass it on the assumption that the votes were not there. But he and the White House are banking on the idea that the Newtown shooting has changed the dynamics. “I have never seen the nation’s conscience so shaken by what happened at Sandy Hook,” Mr. Biden said Wednesday. “The world has changed and is demanding action.” 
   
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   The future of the plan may depend on how much political energy Mr. Obama puts behind it, not just to pressure Republicans but to win over Democrats who support gun rights. Even the White House considers passage of a new assault weapons ban exceedingly difficult, but there did seem to be some consensus building for expanding background checks. 
   
   Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat and a longtime gun control supporter, made no mention of the assault weapons ban in a statement but pointed to the background checks. “If you look at the combination of likelihood of passage and effectiveness of curbing gun crime,” he said, “universal background checks is at the sweet spot.” 
   
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   On the other side, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, dismissed an assault weapons ban as ineffective. “But in terms of background checks, in terms of keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals and people who have serious mental health difficulties, we want to do that, and we would take a close look at that,” he told C-Span. 
   
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   Gun control groups said they would campaign hard for the president’s proposals. Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said his group would focus on as many as 25 Congressional districts, including those of Democrats and Republicans. “We will be doing what we can do to make sure that sitting on their hands is the least safe place to be,” he said. 
   
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   Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, a gun rights supporter, said he re-evaluated his position after Newtown. “I was shaken by it, and that caused me to think in a much more probing way about the policy,” he said in an interview. “If it has anywhere near the impact on others that it did on me, then I think the ground shifted a lot.” 
   
   But Mr. Obama’s plans still generated strong opposition. “Nothing the president is proposing would have stopped the massacre at Sandy Hook,” said Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. “President Obama is targeting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence.” 
   
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   Other Republicans echoed those sentiments. “The Second Amendment is nonnegotiable,” said Representative Tim Huelskamp of Kansas. 
   
   Representative Dan Benishek of Michigan said in a Twitter message: “Let me be clear, I will fight any efforts to take our guns. Not on my watch.” 
   
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   Also Wednesday, Mr. Obama nominated B. Todd Jones, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to lead an agency that has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2006. 
   
   The 23 executive actions Mr. Obama signed on Wednesday were largely modest initiatives to toughen enforcement of existing laws and to encourage federal agencies and state governments to share more information. Mr. Obama lifted a ban on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence and directed that a letter be sent to health care providers saying doctors may ask patients about guns in their homes. 
   
   Several Republicans accused Mr. Obama of flouting Congress. “Using executive action to attempt to poke holes in the Second Amendment is a power grab,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa.
target: – 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.