(Newser)
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When President Obama announces a sweeping gun control agenda today, he'll be joined by schoolchildren who wrote him letters after the Sandy Hook school shooting, reports the Washington Post. Among what he's expected to reveal at a press conference scheduled for just before noon: proposals including a ban on assault weapons, a reduction in the size of ammunition magazines, and closure of the gun show background check loophole, all of which would require approval from Congress, the Guardian reports.
The president also plans to introduce a federal gun trafficking law long requested by big-city mayors looking to keep out-of-state guns, well, out of state, reports Politico. The Post adds that he'll likely call for additional funding for in-school police officers, too. Joe Biden has outlined 19 other executive actions the administration could take to reduce gun violence, including expanding a federal database to track gun sales. But reducing gun violence "cannot be done by a president alone," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters yesterday. (Meanwhile, the NRA called Obama an "elitist hypocrite" in a new ad ... and a Texas representative called him something worse.)
