Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics...

So I watched the president speak at his support party today.  I can't call it anything else since there was wild applause, supporting yells and hoots throughout the speech.  He joked, he played the audience, I was surprised no one held up a lighter or yelled "Freebird!".  He made reference to debunked studies and statistics once again.  I had to laugh when he mentioned Chicago for gun violence, since they have such extensive gun laws and restrictions to go with their high gun violence record.

There was a lot of the speech dedicated to calling up memories of people slain that his executive action would not have saved.  In fact, he admitted it in his speech.  But despite that, he has to do something.  And as such, something results in this executive action.  And really, its about as much as he could do and hope to get away with maybe half of it.  I went to the White House website to look at the actual documentation and found it to be both weak and worrying.

We'll see if he gets the funding approved for the extra ATF agents, but I am willing to bet it'll be approved in return for some other favor.  The FBI will be hiring more people for background check staff and move to 24/7 operation.  Based on the volume the have seen over the last 20 years, I really can't believe that this wasn't done long ago.  And the real loophole that existed, the "Trust, Corporation or Legal Entity" for acquiring NFA listed items (and firearms in general) will be closed by ATF rules.  However, I foresee a lawsuit at some point on that one.  The gun safety research item looks to be a toothless request for reports that will in the end do nothing but waste some interns time.

The items that I see as an issue is the mental health area, because I see a lot of room for abuse of the system.  The last line in the shows that they learned from past battles: "The rulemaking will also provide a mechanism for people to seek relief from the federal prohibition on possessing a firearm for reasons related to mental health."  I worry that this item will be a back burner item, as it appears to be an afterthought and the rest will move forward immediately.

Overall, tho, it looks like a lot of smoke and mirrors.  Creating the illusion of doing something, when it really is only stating that we need to enforce when is already on the books.