Clinton Takes a New Shot at Gun Control

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With less than a year left in office, it appears that the arts of cajoling and persuasion are too long a process for Bill Clinton. So the lame-duck President with legacy on his mind has been using a new tool in recent weeks. Wielding a defiant pen, he has signed a rash of executive orders, circumventing the involvement of the Republican-controlled Congress on issues ranging from national parkland to gun control measures. Clinton's current predilection for such orders, which allow the President to bulk up existing laws without having to fight for congressional approval, was on display Friday, when he enhanced the powers of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents charged with investigating gun dealers — particularly dealers whose sales are traced to crimes.

Announcing the agents' broader authority, Clinton cited a new federal study that pins 57 percent of guns used for criminal activity on less than 1 percent of gun dealers. It's those dealers, and particularly those who refuse to cooperate with criminal investigations, the President emphasized, who will be under the microscope now.

"The White House is starting to use some of the tools it has at its disposal to fight illegal gun use," says TIME senior writer Adam Cohen. As he sidesteps Congress, Clinton is avoiding the inevitably bitter fight with conservative Republicans and National Rifle Association supporters. (A president earlier in his tenure can ill afford to take such a course too often for fear of provoking Congress into long-term non-cooperation.) The NRA, which has long argued that Americans "don't need more laws, we need better enforcement of existing laws," will be hard-pressed to argue with Clinton's latest proposal — any resistance to this hard-core enforcement measure will be widely seen as disingenuous. "This order uses the ATF to enforce laws that are already on the books," says Cohen. "And it will be interesting to see what happens, since it looks as though these laws have been largely underenforced." In fact, Cohen points out, this backdoor alteration could end up having as much an effect on gun crimes as any new law — only there will be far fewer congressional filibusters to sit through.