Obama orders new checks for guns owned by corporations, trusts

The Obama administration on Thursday announced actions to expand criminal background checks and limit the number of military weapons re-entering the country. The executive orders are among 23 recommendations to control gun violence Vice President Joe Biden made in January, said a statement by the White House. One order cracks down on the ability of trusts or corporations to register as the owners of weapons such as machine guns and short-barreled shotguns. Individuals wanting to buy such weapons had been required to undergo and background check; trusts and corporations were not. The order requires individuals associated with the trusts or corporations to undergo the same background checks as individual owners. The statement said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives received 39,000 requests in 2012 to have restricted firearms transferred to trusts or corporations. The second order bans almost all military grade weapons exported from the United States for sale to foreign military forces from being brought back into the country. Such re-importations had required U.S. government approval, with some 250,000 firearms allowed to return. Now, museums are among the very few organizations that can request such permission.