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 This month, Obama stirred conservative ire with executive action
clarifying that all dealers selling guns, including at shows, flea
markets, on the Internet or in stores, are required to get licenses
and run background checks on buyers.
A Senate appropriations panel that funds Justice Department
activities used its first hearing of the year to zero in on the new
federal guidance that pits gun rights advocates against gun control
organizations energized by a series of high-profile mass shootings.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the Republican-controlled
panel the actions would "bring progress on a number of fronts" in
the face of "an epidemic of gun violence."
 In urging Congress to approve millions of additional dollars to help
her agency hire more agents and conduct background checks around the
clock, Lynch said she had "complete confidence" Obama's moves would
survive any court challenges from opponents who argue he has
over-stepped his authority.
But Senator Richard Shelby, the Republican chairman of an
appropriations subcommittee, told Lynch the public fears Obama "is
eager to strip them of their Second Amendment rights" to bear arms
and warned that the panel "will have no part in undermining the
Constitution and the rights it protects."
Obama issued his executive orders after Congress over the past few
years refused to pass gun control legislation and as shooters
carried out fatal attacks including on an elementary school in
Connecticut, a movie theater in Colorado, a Virginia university and
a community center in California.
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Senior Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski decried a "growing nexus
of drugs, crime, guns, violence and murder" that she said resulted
in more than 350 people being killed last year just in Baltimore, in
her home state of Maryland.
Amid the infighting, Republican Senator James Lankford said there
likely is common ground on the need for states to improve reporting
to federal authorities on people convicted of crimes under state
law.
"Alabama currently has zero felonies running into the (federal
background check) system; California has 4,032. ... Delaware has
zero, Maryland, 12, my fine state of Oklahoma has one," Lankford
complained.
Congressional appropriators will spend much of this year wrangling
over fiscal 2017 funding, such as money for gun background checks.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by James Dalgleish)
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