White House considers far broader approach to gun control

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The White House is weighing a far broader approach to curbing US gun violence than just reinstating a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

A working group led by Vice-President Joe Biden is seriously considering measures that would require universal background checks for gun buyers and track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database, the newspaper said.

The measures would also strengthen mental health checks and stiffen penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors, the Post said. The approach is backed by law enforcement leaders, it said.

US President Barack Obama assigned Biden the job of designing the strategy after the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, last month that killed 20 children and six adults.

To sell such changes, the White House is developing strategies to work around the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby.

They include rallying support from Wal-Mart stores and other gun retailers for measures that would benefit their businesses, the Post said.

The White House has been in contact with advisers to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a gun control advocate who could emerge as a surrogate for the administration's agenda, the paper said.

The White House had no immediate comment on the Post story. A White House spokesman told the newspaper that Biden's group was in the middle of its review and had not decided on its final recommendations.

The NRA has successfully lobbied federal lawmakers to stop major new gun restrictions since a 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. The ban also prohibited ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

When asked if Congress will entertain new gun regulation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on NBC's Meet the Press that lawmakers needed to see Biden's recommendations.

McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said that for the next three months Washington's debates would center on federal spending and the rising debt.

Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, an NRA member, said on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopolous that the reported proposals were "way in extreme" and would not pass.

In a statement, New York Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand urged Biden to include in his proposals measures to prevent trafficking in illegal guns and to make it harder for felons and the mentally ill to get firearms.

Questions:

1. Who is the working group led by?

2. Who could emerge as a surrogate for the administration’s agenda?

3. When did the 1994 assault weapons ban expire?

Answers:

1. Vice-President Joe Biden.

2. Michael Bloomberg.

3. 2004.

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Emily Cheng is an editor at China Daily. She was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Media, English Literature and Politics. She has worked in the media industry since starting university and this is the third time she has settled abroad - she interned with a magazine in Hong Kong 2007 and studied at the University of Leeds in 2009.