Gun-control legislation failed loudly following the Newtown school shooting, but that has not stopped President Obama from leaving Congress behind to launch a broad gun-control campaign of his own.
Between the December 2012 massacre and the Navy Yard mass shooting Monday, Obama has taken 25 separate gun-control initiatives, all of which came from executive actions that did not require congressional authorization.
The president's highest-profile move was to nominate and get confirmed Todd Jones as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, filling a seat that had sat empty for more than six years. But Obama has also initiated a series of quieter initiatives, including new rules to keep guns away from felons, better coordinate mental-illness screenings, and better preparing local law enforcement and schools to respond to shootings.
The White House readily admits its actions alone cannot solve the nation's epidemic of gun violence, but given that an expanded-background-check bill stalled in the Senate in April, the executive orders are—for now—Obama's only available option.
"Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities," a visibly angry Obama said after the bill fell six votes shy of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
For Obama, the actions' main advantage is that they cannot be blocked by the powerful gun lobby—including the National Rifle Association—that successfully stymied the president's legislative push. Down the line, the rules could be changed by a subsequent administration, or Congress could hamper their efficacy by at some point cutting the funding to enforce them. But, for now at least, Obama can move forward without waiting for anyone else's permission.
Most of Obama's orders are aimed at reducing administrative weaknesses that complicate the enforcement of existing gun laws, said John Hudak, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
It will be years, however, before anyone knows whether these policies have any measurable effect in reducing gun violence, Hudak said. "Because these policies were either launched in January or the conversation about them was launched in January, we certainly don't have any evidence about their effectiveness one way or another," he said.
