On January 3rd the Obama administration announced two new executive actions concerning background checks on firearm purchasers.
These come just over four months after Obama last used executive actions to bypass Congress and just weeks after Vice President Joe Biden said the White House was shifting its focus away from gun control.
According to Fox News, Biden now says the administration is issuing two executive actions to broaden access to mental health records during background checks.
One of the actions allows states to provide mental health information heretofore off-limits due to HIPAA privacy laws. The second action broadens the criteria for the label “committed to a mental institution,” so that those who are “involuntarily committed” to an institution for outpatient care are viewed the same as those who are “involuntarily committed” for inpatient care.
When announcing the executive actions, Obama and Biden renewed their call for Congress to pass “common-sense gun safety legislation.”
The administration points to the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary as justification for the new executive actions as well as for its calls for more gun control. It should be noted that these new actions would not have stopped Adam Lanza from carrying out his crime because he did not buy his guns.
He stole them.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.