Obama's dilemma on US gun control
- By Liu Qiang
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E-mail China.org.cn, January 7, 2016
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Held hostage [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn] |
Zhang Juzheng, a famous Chinese reformer and statesman during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), once said, "It is not difficult to make a law, but it is difficult to enforce it."
However, in the United States, the process seems to be the other way around. For the country's federal government, making a law is much more difficult than enforcing it, especially on the issue of gun control.
Three years ago, U.S. President Barack Obama tried to promote a tougher gun bill which was blocked by the country's Congress. There are two main reasons. One is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the other is the increasing divergence between the country's different political parties.
The text of the Second Amendment states that, "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
This means that the Americans, at least their founding fathers, believed that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a right empowered by God rather than the country.
In the U.S., an outright ban on guns would be impossible. President Obama, who has taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago's Law School, understands this clearly.
On January 5, President Obama announced to take a number of executive actions on gun control, despite opposition from Congress. The main proposals Obama is poised to adopt would require unlicensed gun dealers to get licenses and conduct background checks on potential buyers.
During the gun control speech on Tuesday, President Obama mentioned the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. "Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad," Obama said, pausing to wipe away tears.
However, his emotional speech seems not to have similarly moved gun liberalists. In their opinion, expanding background checks will do nothing to limit gun violence, except bringing inconvenience for legal gun buyers.
In a December CNN/ORC poll, 48 percent of Americans said they were in favor of stricter gun control laws with 51 percent opposed. In the face of the U.S. 2016 presidential election, Obama's executive actions on gun control will deepen the divergence between the two Parties.
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