WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s do-it-himself plan for keeping guns away from those who shouldn’t have them falls far short of what he’d hoped to accomplish through legislation after a massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School shook the country to attention in 2012.
Yet even the more modest steps rely on murky interpretations of existing law that could be easily reversed.
Obama plans to unveil the package at an event Tuesday with gun violence victims.
At the centerpiece of Obama’s plan is a broader definition of gun dealers that must register and conduct background checks.
At gun shows, websites and flea markets, sellers often skirt that requirement by declining to register as licensed dealers. But officials said new federal guidance would clarify it applies to anyone “in the business” of selling firearms.