An emotional Obama unveils his plan to cut gun violence

Gun sales continued to surge in the U.S.in the 12 months before President Barack Obama announced his plan to reduce gun violence. “If the president wants to reduce the number of guns in America he should stop talking”, since stocks in gun companies rise every time he does.

Many if not all of these executive actions, some of which will require help from Congress regarding funding, will be met with stern opposition, most notably from those seeking the Republican nomination for president.

The president will discuss these new executive measures again Thursday at a televised town hall event with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and next Tuesday as part of his State of the Union address.

The President’s executive actions come after the Republican Congress has repeatedly refused to allow votes on commonsense, bipartisan gun violence prevention legislation – including acting on seven separate occasions to block a vote on a Republican Congressman’s legislation to close the outrageous terror gun loophole that allows suspected terrorists to buy deadly weapons across America.

And they’re liable to fire back, as they did Tuesday when Texas Republicans began shooting holes in Obama’s gun control plan that he hopes will curb gun violence and prevent some future mass shootings.

Christie disagreed. “We should stop spending so much time on law-abiding citizens and start taking more time on taking criminals off the streets”, he told Hannity.

Hillary Clinton, at a rally in Iowa, said she was proud of Obama’s efforts, but warned that the next president could easily undo his changes. Lynch said the administration chose to clarify guidelines because it allowed the policies to be implemented immediately.

“No matter what President Obama says, his word does not trump the Second Amendment”, Ryan said.

“Contrary to the claims of what some gun rights proponents have suggested, this hasn’t been the first step in some slipperly slope to mass confiscation”, he said.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: “You say if we can save one life we should”.

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America’s retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. “We will conduct vigilant oversight”.

The executive actions will include background checks for all gun sellers, and overturn current exemptions to gun show and some online sellers.

“It’s the ones we deal with on a day to day basis who we arrest and take guns off of them”.

Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said, “The president has abused these actions in the past and exceeded the boundaries of the law”. However, an NRA spokeswoman quoted in The New York Timesappeared to downplay the significance of the measures.

The centerpiece of the executive order is requiring all sellers of firearms to be licensed by the government and for all buyers to undergo background checks.

“Each time this comes up, we are fed the excuse that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, or the one before that, so why bother trying”.

“We intend to make this system more efficient and make it more comprehensive”, said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “The bad guys are always going to have guns”.

In January of 2015 38,280 background checks were processed compared to December of 2015 when 90,064 were processed.

The Advocate spoke with several people outside a sporting goods store in Hebron, which also sells guns, after Obama’s Tuesday announcement.

“It puts them on notice and, if accompanied with aggressive enforcement, has the potential to narrow the number of unlicensed dealers who are selling without background checks”, he said.