In addition, President Obama announced: the hiring of 200 new ATF agents; increased mental health care funding; $4 million to enhance the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network used to link crimes in one jurisdiction to ballistics evidence in another; the creation of an Internet Investigations Center to track illegal online gun trafficking; a new Department of Health and Human Services rule saying that it is not a HIPAA violation to report mental health information to the background check system; a new requirement to report gun thefts; new research funding for gun safety technologies; and more funding to train law enforcement officers on preventing gun casualties in domestic violence cases.
In his speech announcing the executive actions on gun control, President Obama stated that “every single year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns.” While reiterating his support of the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, the President explained that the United States is “the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency,” and stated that “[w]e do not have to accept this carnage as the price of freedom.”
Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Martin O’Malley all made statements in support of President Obama’s executive actions on gun control.