VP Joe Biden heads Obama’s “Gun Control” panel
James Jay Baker, former executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action will represent the organization at a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden on Jan. 10 as part of the Obama administration’s effort to address gun-related crime, TGM has learned.
Biden was tasked last month with leading an effort to come up with solutions to so-called “gun violence.”
The meeting comes one day after the vice president is scheduled to meet with so-called “gun safety” organizations and crime victims.
According to The Hill and USA Today, the NRA and other gun groups, including hunters, will be represented at the Thursday session. The NRA was invited to the meeting on Friday, Jan. 4.
Baker is known as one of the more effective lobbyists on Capitol Hill, having worked at NRA for several years. He left the organization for a time but is now back at ILA.
According to NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam, NRA is attending the meeting “to hear what they have to say.”
Many in the firearms community already are convinced that the Obama administration plans a full court press on gun owners. The president already announced that he would push for a new ban on so-called “assault weapons,” and he voiced support for a proposal from Sen. Dianne Feinstein that would ban not only semi-auto rifles that resemble military weapons, but also handguns that have a single “military characteristic.” That could affect a majority of popular handguns now in public hands.
Pressure to adopt more restrictive gun laws began in the hours following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December. Anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg almost immediately capitalized on the shooting of 20 children and six adults at the school to demand more gun restrictions even before detectives could determine what current laws had been violated.
In the days since, gun prohibitionists have pushed their traditional agenda against gun shows, even though the Connecticut gunman did not acquire his guns from a gun show, and various other measures.
