'If there’s even one life that can be saved, then we have an obligation to try,' Obama says. | REUTERS Guns plan meets fast resistance

President Barack Obama didn’t even get an hour before the hopes of passing his expansive gun control package seemed to get bounced back by Capitol Hill.

Almost immediately after the president finished announcing a plan that centered on a universal background check system and new bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, Senate Democrats said that they would act only narrowly on Obama’s sweeping proposals — and House Speaker John Boehner, whose Republican Conference opposes new restrictions, punted to the Senate, saying the House wouldn’t act before the Senate did.


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Obama, though, said he intended “to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality” — and immediately engaged in the fight with the National Rifle Association, which is leading the opposition to new gun restrictions.

This is a moment in which all Americans, including NRA members, should stand up to its pressures, the president said. Without mentioning the NRA by name, Obama turned combative against the nation’s largest pro-gun group. “If parents and teachers, police officers and pastors, if hunters and sportsmen, if responsible gun owners, if Americans of every background stand up and say, enough, we’ve suffered too much pain and cared too much about our children to allow this to continue, then change will come,” he said.

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Obama’s urging for Americans to resist the influence of the NRA came just after the White House condemned a new ad from the group contrasting the armed protection that Obama’s two daughters are given to the president’s opposition to putting armed guards in schools.

“Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight,” press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “But to go so far as to make the safety of the president’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly.”

The NRA responded in a toned-down statement hours after the president finished speaking. “The NRA will continue to focus on keeping our children safe and securing our schools, fixing our broken mental health system, and prosecuting violent criminals to the fullest extent of the law. We look forward to working with Congress on a bi-partisan basis to find real solutions to protecting America’s most valuable asset – our children.”

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Obama’s legislative proposals and executive actions are the first major gun control measures to come from the White House in a generation, and come after a month of quick work by a group led by Vice President Joe Biden tasked with responding to the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.

The president initiated 23 executive actions, including nominating a new leader for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, after he spoke. Together, they’re expected to cost $500 million in fiscal 2014.

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But overcoming the NRA isn’t the only challenge Obama faces.

In the Senate, top Democrats have not yet decided how to proceed on the president’s proposals and will begin meetings next week among their leadership and their caucus to finalize a strategy.

But people familiar with the matter say the most-likely scenario is to move legislation in the Senate on a piecemeal basis — rather than in a comprehensive fashion. That would likely occur as soon as February, and the most likely measure that would move first is a proposal resembling Obama’s call for universal background checks. Such a proposal is a top priority for gun control groups, has received bipartisan support in the past and wouldn’t be as hard for red-state Democrats to stomach.

A number of Senate Democrats who support gun control measures already have offered proposals that were included in Obama’s overall plan, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the assault weapons ban, Chuck Schumer on background checks, Kirsten Gillibrand on gun trafficking and Frank Lautenberg’s plan to ban high-capacity magazines and close the so-called gun show loophole.

Still, other than the background checks proposal, it’s not at all clear whether Democrats in the Senate will hold votes on any other piece of the Obama plan, most notably the assault weapons ban. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threw cold water in a televised interview in Nevada over the weekend on the idea of scheduling votes in his chamber on a bill that stood no chance in the House. And an assault weapons ban has virtually no chance to pass the House or the Senate — given the concerns of several key moderate Democrats and near unanimous opposition from Senate Republicans.

House Republicans, as expected, responded in ways ranging from hesitant to clearly opposed.

Boehner punted to the Senate and his committee chairs. “House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations. And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that,” his spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) charged in a statement that Obama’s executive actions and legislative proposals are a violation of basic American rights. “The Second Amendment is non-negotiable. The right to bear arms is a right, despite President Obama’s disdain for the Second Amendment and the Constitution’s limits on his power.”

Obama warned that the effort to pass the new guns legislation would be difficult but called on people across the country to join him in pressuring Congress and pundits to support the efforts.

“The most important changes we can make depend on congressional action. They need to bring these proposals up for a vote, and the American people need to make sure that they do,” he said.

“Get them on record. Ask your member of Congress if they support universal background checks to keep guns out of the wrong hands,” he continued. “Ask them if they support renewing a ban on military assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. and if they say no, ask them why not. Ask them what’s more important? Doing whatever it takes to get an “A” grade from the gun lobby that funds their campaigns or giving parents some peace of mind when they drop their child off for first grade?”

Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, echoed the president when he spoke to reporters outside the White House. “The only place where this issue is a heated, partisan, political debate is in the halls of Congress,” he said. “There is an extraordinary disconnect between what the American public wants — including gun owners and NRA members — and what our elected officials are doing about it. It is going to be up to us, the American public, to close that disconnect.”

Obama also called on Congress to confirm Todd Jones, his new nominee for director of the ATF.

Jones has been acting director for more than a year, but Congress has blocked the confirmation of a new agency director for the past six years. Obama had previously nominated Andrew Traver, who leads the agency’s Denver division, for the job.

“The only place where this issue is a heated, partisan, political debate is in the halls of Congress. There is an extraordinary disconnect between what the American public wants — including gun owners and NRA members — and what our elected officials are doing about it. It is going to be up to us, the American public, to close that disconnect.”

Invoking the memory of those killed in the Newtown shooting, Biden said: “The world has changed, and it’s demanding action.”

Obama called on lawmakers to back legislation that would renew the assault weapons ban, require background checks for all gun sales, root out gun trafficking and end the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines and armor-piercing bullets. Aware of the challenges of getting gun-related bills passed, Obama is also taking steps on his own, directing federal agencies to take steps to strengthen the background check system, to improve mental health care and to better track lost and stolen guns, among other measures.

Many questions remain about Obama’s plan. Senior administration officials said that none of the new proposals would necessarily have prevented Newtown or other recent gun massacres, but did reiterate what the president has been saying since he launched his Newtown response, that actions that save even one child’s life are worthwhile.

The White House said it has not estimated how many lives would be saved if all the new proposals were adopted, in part because there has been limited study of gun violence. And it offered no strategy of how the president will seek to persuade a skeptical Congress to pass his legislation.

Obama will mount a comprehensive campaign to back his gun violence plans, senior administration officials said. He will push information to supporters through his official website and may conduct a roadshow to boost his efforts, officials said. And Biden reminded a group of Democratic members of Congress he met with Monday that the White House has Obama’s campaign apparatus at its disposal.

“It is clear that public opinion is going to be on the side of what the president lays out today,” a senior administration official said before Obama’s event.

Obama will also ask Congress for $10 million in the 2014 budget to conduct research into violence in video games, television and the movies.

Other executive orders will include planks on education and mental health, providing federal resources for anti-bullying efforts and training for school counselors and first responders. The White House will seek to hire 1,000 school resource officers.

But the biggest-ticket items will be the White House push to close the so-called gun-show loophole by requiring universal background checks, banning assault weapons and ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 rounds and a new gun-trafficking law long sought by big-city mayors.

An assault weapons ban would bring back a prohibition from the 1994 crime bill that lapsed in 2004. With gun manufacturers simply altering how guns were made to get around the ban, it ultimately was less effective than advocates had hoped. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who will introduce an updated version of the ban next week, will propose in her new legislation a simpler and broader federal definition of an assault rifle, her office said.

Manu Raju contributed to this report.