Obama's charge for gun control won't be easy
Lewis DiuguidSome point to President Bill Clinton signing the Brady bill into law in 1993 imposing a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases as the reason behind Republicans taking over Congress the following year.
It didn’t help that Clinton also signed into law in September 1994 a 10-year ban on assault weapons. But again, Clinton had a Democratic majority working with him.
Now President Barack Obama plans to press a Republican-controlled Congress to ban military-style assault weapons and high capacity magazines and expand background checks while strengthening gun-trafficking laws. Obama is taking on not only the Republican Party, but the political strength of the National Rifle Association.
The president, who begins his second term next week has public outrage on his side over recurring mass shootings, including at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 children and six adults dead at the school on Dec. 14.
But the test this year will be whose political capital is the strongest — Obama’s or the Republicans combined with the NRA.
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