From thehill.com, By Megan R. Wilson – 01/25/13: The Justice Department is taking the first steps toward carrying out President Obama’s executive actions on gun control.The proposed regulations would give local law-enforcement agencies access to the gun-sale database that is maintained by the FBI. The rules would also preserve records of denied weapons sales indefinitely.
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act already requires federal background checks for gun purchases, but not every firearm sale is covered under the law.
Currently, law enforcement agencies cannot perform a NICS check when transferring, returning or selling weapons that have been confiscated, seized or recovered. The new rules would change that, allowing officials to perform a background check on people who receive those weapons to ensure that they are permitted to own a gun.
Obama ordered the rule change in a Jan. 16 memo that called for “rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.”
Holder is also proposing that the NICS hold on to records of denied weapon sales that are more than 10 years old. When the NICS was established, the Justice Department ordered that the records be moved to a storage facility after 10 years, which Holder says is no longer necessary.
“The FBI has therefore determined that for NICS’ own internal business operations, litigation and prosecution purposes, and proper administration of the system, NICS shall retain denied transaction records on site,” Holder wrote in a notice to be published in Monday’s Federal Register. “The retention of denied transaction information … will enhance the efficiency and operational capability of the NICS.”
The proposed rules would also give Native American tribes access to NICS. Currently, only federal, state, or local agencies can perform the checks, which leaves out “domestic dependent nations” recognized by the United States.
The Justice Department isn’t the only part of the administration that has been asked to take action in response to last month’s school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The president has also ordered the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to get involved.
One of Obama’s directives was to ensure coverage of mental health treatment in Medicaid and under the healthcare reform law. He also ordered increased training of school staff to help them recognize signs of mental illness.
The CDC, meanwhile, was directed to study the causes of gun violence. The president urged Congress to approve $10 million for the agency to examine whether there are links between shooting sprees and violent entertainment.
Comments on the Justice Department proposals are due by March 28.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/pending-regs/279345-holder-begins-gun-control-push#ixzz2J5PEnNTF Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Parker County Blog 
how many of the tough-talking Sheriffs will “default” when the time comes ? Some cannot distinguish between “law” and “rights”…
http://lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w306.html
If Idaho had been part of the Union in 1850, and Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney had occupied that office at the time, he would have dutifully arrested any black man or woman identified as an escaped slave. Oh, sure, Raney may have expressed agonized reluctance as he did so – but that reluctance would have been rhetorical window-dressing for his pious invocation of the sacred responsibility he had to submit to the “law of the land.”
This is the inescapable logic of the position Raney has taken in an op-ed column published last week in the Idaho Statesman.
“I have been asked many times in the past couple of weeks whether I will uphold my oath to defend the Constitution and proclaim an intolerance of federal action against the Second Amendment,” Raney writes. Many others have indulged that pressure and now we see Oregon sheriffs, Wyoming legislators and others making hollow promises to protect you from the intrusions of the federal government.”
“I did not swear to uphold just part of the Constitution,” Raney continues, before tacitly promising to do that very thing. You see, the Constitution, on Raney’s construction, “includes the right to keep and bear arms, but it also includes the `supremacy clause’ that says that every state shall abide by the laws passed by our Congress.”
Actually, that right is not included in the Constitution; it exists independent of that document or any other government charter, and no government has the moral right or delegated authority to take it away. What Raney asserts here is the idea that the existence of that right is contingent on government approval, and thus can be nullified by government. From this perspective, the only part of the Constitution that matters is the supremacy clause, at least as people like Raney pretend to understand it.
“So, despite the fact that I personally oppose some of the gun control measures currently under consideration, my oath requires me to uphold the laws that are passed by our federal and state representatives,” summarizes Raney. The same would have been true, of course, of the Fugitive Slave Act – which was properly enacted and enforced as the “law of the land” despite the heroic efforts of people in some cities and states to nullify enforcement of that abominable measure.
Give Raney whatever credit is due to him for his candor: Like the other sheriffs who have pledged not to carry out unconstitutional federal gun confiscation measures, Raney receives federal subsidies – but unlike his pro-Second Amendment colleagues, Raney is forthright about the fact that he is merely a servile tool of the federal leviathan state. He will confiscate firearms from innocent people if ordered to, but at least he won’t have to walk back any promises he had made to protect their rights.
January 28, 2013
William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.
Copyright © 2013 William Norman Grigg
The Best of William Norman Grigg