President Obama, Michael Bloomberg Discuss Ways to Bypass Congress for Gun Control

On December 16, President Obama met with Michael Bloomberg to discuss ways executive action may be used to circumvent Congress for more gun control.

Bloomberg, who provides funding for Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Safety in America, has been pushing Obama to use executive action to expand background checks to cover private gun owners who sell guns to other private gun owners, which Americans have been doing since 1791. On November 12, CBS News reported that Obama had a team of “White House lawyers” looking for a way to expand background checks to address this.

But CNN indicated the December 16 meeting between Obama and Bloomberg focused more on the possibility of expanding background checks to erase private sales at gun shows.

Obama undertook the search for possible executive actions on gun control following the October 1 shooting in the gun-free zone at Umpqua Community College (UCC). The LA Times previously reported that the UCC gunman acquired all his guns “legally”–i.e., passed background checks for them–yet Obama used the shooting as an impetus for expanding background checks, and that has now morphed into the possibility of banning private sales at gun shows.

As with the effort to expand background checks following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, barring private sales at gun shows will in no way prevent or even slightly hinder another UCC-style attack. Determined attackers pass background checks, as has been demonstrated again and again. Or they simply steal their guns, as Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza did. And if they are willing to steal guns to commit heinous acts, there really is no amount of gun control that will stop them.

New gun controls will accomplish one thing, however; they will create one more set of hoops through which law-abiding citizens must jump to exercise their Second Amendment rights. And every additional hoop strengthens the position of the criminal while weakening the position of the innocent.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.