Obama will move to plug gun show loophole, advisers say

NEW YORK - The next shoe to drop on gun control may come by mid-January, when President Obama is expected to issue an executive order requiring everyone "in the business" of selling firearms to perform background checks.

Federal law already obliges federally licensed gun retailers to do computerized criminal checks via the Federal Bureau of Investigation's database. But people who lack federal licenses and sell guns from their personal collections are not required to do the checks.

Many firearms are sold in the latter fashion by individuals who aren't ­technically gun retailers but who sell weapons at weekend gun shows or from their homes. Forthcoming research by the Harvard School of Public Health estimates that 40 percent of all gun transfers occur without background checks (that's the so-called gun show loophole).

Following another a year of mass shootings of Americans, Obama has let it be known from his holiday retreat in Hawaii, through advisers, that soon after New Year's Day he plans to follow through on plans to expand the definition of who's "in the business" of selling firearms — and thus who's required to perform background checks.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, among others, has strongly backed this idea, and now Obama appears ready to make its implementation one of the first major acts of his final year in office.

Another fan of expanded background checks is Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg LP and founder of Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation's leading nonprofit advocating tougher regulation of firearms. Bloomberg visited Obama at the White House last week to discuss gun-safety strategies.

The timing of the expected Obama move on background checks guarantees it will receive a hostile reaction from gun-rights advocates, thousands of whom will gather next month in Las Vegas for the firearm industry's annual Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade Show, known as SHOT.

These full-time retailers resent competition from casual unlicensed sellers at gun shows.

But the National Rifle Association's orthodoxy — that any additional gun control is merely a first step toward bans and confiscation — holds sway in the firearms world, making outward expressions of support among gun sellers for Obama's proposal unlikely. While the enormous gathering in Las Vegas isn't technically an NRA event, the group's strong anti-Obama stance will almost certainly be evident there, and a fresh proposal to stiffen regulation may have the effect of pouring gasoline on a fire already burning hot.

There will probably be calls to challenge Obama's authority to broaden the background check mandate without congressional involvement.

Lawsuits and objections from pro-gun Republicans on Capitol Hill will likely follow, as has happened with other efforts by the administration to use executive authority in the environmental arena.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and other Republican presidential candidates are expected to condemn the Obama proposal.