Obama Faces ‘Limited’ Options On Executive Action On Gun Violence
” Legal experts say the most significant changes being considered by Biden’s task force – including an assault weapons ban, a prohibition on high-capacity ammunition magazines and universal background checks for gun sales – would all require congressional action.
“His options are limited,” Adam Winkler, constitutional scholar at the UCLA School of Law, said by phone Friday. “He can seek to better enforce existing federal law, but he can’t act contrary to existing federal law.”
Winkler and others say Obama can install changes like new importation limits on weapons, tougher law-enforcement policies and greater cooperation between federal agencies sharing criminal and mental-health records – all without Congress’s blessing.
Biden and other administration officials are holding their cards very close to the vest, but past actions from the White House – combined with some of the vice president’s brief public comments from this week – lend some clues about what type of executive actions might be under consideration. “
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