Obama’s Bold Move Against Guns Proves the Politics of Firearms Really Is Changing

It’s common in the U.S. to refer to a 2nd-term president in his final year as a “lame duck.” But, not for the first time, Obama has surprised and confounded his critics.

With tears running down his cheeks, President Barack Obama talks about the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and about his efforts to increase federal gun control in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2016. Without approval from Congress, Obama is sidestepping the legislative process with executive actions to expand background checks for some firearm purchases and step up federal enforcement of existing gun laws. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

It’s common in the United States to refer to a second-term president in his final year as a “lame duck,” his time limited, his momentum gone, and his political capital ebbing away to whoever’s next in line for the White House. But, not for the first time, Barack Obama has surprised and confounded his critics.

Deeply frustrated by the failure of his package of “sensible gun controls” to secure enough votes in the Senate back in April 2013, he has now announced a series of executive control measures as a way of delivering on key gun control commitments, re-energizing the debate, and doing so in a way that may favor the Democratic cause in a presidential election year.

This parallel approach of controlling criminal access to firearms while protecting law-abiding and responsible gun ownership is hardly a new idea.