Obama tapping Biden for gun violence policy review

President Obama will announce Wednesday that he's naming Vice President Biden to lead an inter-agency process to formulate policies designed to lower the likelihood of any future Newtown-like tragedies, White House officials tell CBS News.

The White House aides say Mr. Obama won't announce significant new policies on gun control or other Newtown-related issues. Instead, he will discuss an administration process to look at all issues related to the elementary school massacre, the officials say.

After a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Friday, the president declared that changes must be made, but was initially vague on what sorts of changes, especially to gun laws, he would seek, other than to say he would talk with mental health professionals and lawmakers about how to move forward.

On Tuesday, a day after Mr. Obama met with Biden and members of his Cabinet about guns and violence, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney provided more details about the sort of gun control legislation Mr. Obama could back.

Carney said the president would consider measures limiting high-volume ammunition and closing the "gun show loophole" - a provision that allows people to circumvent background checks by purchasing a gun from an unlicensed seller at gun shows, online and via other venues.

The president also backs a ban on assault weapons, Carney said. Mr. Obama's advisers insist he has long been behind such a ban, even though the president did not push the issue after previous mass shootings in Tucson, Ariz., and Aurora, Colo.

But Carney insisted that legislation alone won't solve the problem of gun violence. "It is a simply a fact that legislation that addresses access to certain types of weapons or magazines or how we perform background checks, while they have merit and the president supports the ones that I've mentioned, would not alone address this problem," he said.

Since the Newtown carnage, sentiment on Capitol Hill and in polls appears to have shifted toward tighter gun control laws. The nation's most influential gun rights group, the National Rifle Association, initially went mum after the Newtown shooting, but now promises "meaningful contributions" aimed at avoiding another Newtown.

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Guns in Circulation Is Biggest Obstacle, Expert Says

Editor's Note: This post is part of a larger series by ABC News examining the complex legal, political and social issues in the gun control debate. The series is part of ABC's special coverage of the search for solutions in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The Second Amendment of the Constitution reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Despite that seemingly clear statement that Americans have the right to buy and own guns, legal experts say it does not preclude the government from enacting measures to regulate the manufacturing and distributing of firearms.

"The biggest misconception is the idea that the Second Amendment imposes serious hurdles to gun control," says Adam Winkler, law professor at UCLA and author of "Gun Fight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America."

"The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear that there is plenty of room for effective gun control laws," he said. "The right of people to have guns and gun control are not mutually exclusive."

Legislation introduced which proports to control gun violence has historically focused on regulating high-capacity ammunition clips and certain types of semi-automatic firearms. Polling shows that these types of regulations are generally popular, and therefore proposals to ban the sale of these types of weapons and weapon accessories makes political sense.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

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But legislation to control sales of weapons don't address the biggest hurdle to effective gun control -- the guns that are already in circulation.

"The biggest problem for gun control today is a number: 300 million," Winkler said. "That's roughly the number of guns there are in civilian hands today. Any new law you pass confronts the reality of 300 million guns already in circulation."

Federal and state government hands are tied when it comes to regulating these already circulated firearms, he said.

"You can outlaw assault rifles for instance, say that anyone who has one, it's illegal, you have to turn it in," Winkler said. "You could do that, but they won't be turned in. It's not that you can't outlaw them, it's just that practically speaking you can't get rid of them."

Additionally, the politically popular avenue of banning the manufacturing and sale of certain types of semi-automatic weapons is inherently flawed.

For a gun to be classified as a semi-automatic, it must be designed to automatically reload a bullet after the shooter pulls the trigger. Virtually every civilian-owned gun is a type of semi-automatic gun, which means banning all semi-automatic guns would likely be read by the courts as a violation of the Second Amendment, and therefore any ban on these weapons would be limited in scope.

Automatic firearms -- those in which a shooter pulls the trigger once and the gun fires multiple rounds of bullets -- are tightly regulated and have been since the 1930s.

While regulation of certain types of semi-automatics, such as assault weapons, has broad public support, broader legislative actions are not. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., found that 71 percent of Americans oppose banning the sale of handguns to everyone except law enforcement officials.

"The court's reading of the Second Amendment is completely in sync with the American public's views on firearms," said Randy Barnett, professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University. "That is, you're allowed to have firearms, you're allowed to have them in the home for self-defense. ... Americans are willing to consider reasonable regulations of that, and courts are also willing to consider that."

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Honor the victims -- with action

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

President Obama addresses Newtown

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• David Gergen says we should take a cue from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address


• He says U.S. must deal with its culture of guns and find real solutions


• Gun owners should be licensed, and assault weapons should be banned, he says


• He says we will be held morally accountable for what we do -- or fail to do

Editor's note: David Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN and has been an adviser to four presidents. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Yet again we are struggling to bear the unbearable. How can we find meaning in the massacre of so many innocent children, savagely cut down in a hail of bullets?

Abraham Lincoln is much on our minds these days and, fortunately, there is much his life teaches us about giving meaning to human horror. Eleven months from now, we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of his journey to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he consecrated a national cemetery in honor of the thousands slaughtered in the Civil War battle there.

In the most eloquent address in American history, Lincoln told us, "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to (their) great unfinished work." In their honor, he concluded, "we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom."

David Gergen

These were not idle words; he devoted himself to action. In the final months of his life, as the new film on Lincoln shows, he threw himself into the enactment of the 13th Amendment, outlawing slavery in the entire nation. After his death, the nation continued to act as he had asked, passing the 14th Amendment and quickening its progress toward realizing the dream of the Declaration: that all are created equal.

The shootings in Connecticut are not Gettysburg, but surely the long, unending string of killings that we have endured must do more than touch our hearts. As Lincoln saw, we must find meaning in the madness of life -- and we do that by honoring the dead through action.

The moment to act is now upon us, not to be lost as we rush headlong into the holiday season and more twists and turns ahead. We are better than that.

There is a common thread running through most of the mass killings we have seen in recent years: A deranged gunman gets his hands on a gun, usually a semi-automatic, and rapidly cuts down innocents before anyone can stop him.

Clearly, we must find better answers for the mentally unstable. We have the ability to recognize the characteristics of those more likely to commit such acts of violence, and we must do more to provide long-term treatment.

But just as clearly, we need to change our culture of guns. There is something terribly wrong in a nation that has some 300 million guns floating around, easily accessible to the mentally ill. Of the 62 mass shootings in the U.S. over the past three decades, more than three-quarters of the guns used were obtained legally.

Unless we act to change our laws as well as our culture, we will all be enablers when the next loner strikes. The blood will be on our hands, too.

Experts can come up with precise policy prescriptions that will allow us to maintain the constitutional freedoms of the 2nd Amendment while also changing our gun culture. Contrary to what the National Rifle Association says, it is very possible to do both. What is needed immediately is a conversation determining what principles we want to establish -- and then action to realize them. From my perspective, there should be at least three basic principles:

FIRST: To own a gun, you must first have a license -- and it shouldn't be easy to get. The right parallel is to cars: Everyone over a prescribed age is entitled to drive. But cars are dangerous, so we first require a license -- determining that you are fit to drive. Citizens have a right to bear arms, but guns are dangerous, too. So, get a license.

There are a number of issues with our current system of state-based permits. First, variation in gun regulations from state to state deeply complicates enforcement efforts. Arizona, for instance, allows concealed carry without any permit, while its neighbor California has implemented the strongest gun laws in the country. We must design a sensible federal gun control policy to address the current legal chaos.

As we construct a federal licensing system, we should look to California. The state requires all gun sales to be processed through a licensed dealer, mandating background checks and a ten-day waiting period; bans most assault weapons and all large-capacity magazines; closes the nonsensical gun-show loophole; and maintains a permanent record of all sales.

SECOND: If you are a civilian, you can't buy an assault gun. Hunters don't need military style weapons, nor do homeowners who want to be able to protect their families. They are far too popular among people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place.

We should restore the federal ban that has expired.

THIRD: Parents should be heavily advised to keep guns out of their houses and out of the hands of kids. No one wants to blame the poor mother of the Connecticut shooter, but everyone wonders why she kept so many military-style guns in the house, so accessible to her son. It's hard to believe, but roughly a third of households with children younger than 18 contain at least one gun. In too many neighborhoods in America -- not just in big cities -- parents who don't allow guns in their homes are apprehensive, even frightened, by their kids playing at homes where they are kept.

Some years ago, no one thought that we could change our tobacco culture. We did. No one thought that we could reduce drunk driving by teenagers. We did -- thanks in large part to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Years from now, no one will note what we say after this latest massacre. But they will hold us morally accountable for what we do. To honor all of those who have been slain in recent years -- starting with the first-graders in Connecticut -- we should highly resolve to change our culture of guns.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.

Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Gergen.

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Thai woman's bid to bring in 3.4kg of Ice foiled

SINGAPORE: A 27-year-old Thai woman's bid to bring in approximately 3.4 kilograms (kg) of Ice was foiled by authorities on Monday.

The Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) successfully halted the attempt at the Changi Airport terminal 3 arrival hall.

The estimated street value of the drugs found is about S$850,000.

The 27-year-old had arrived on a flight from New Delhi and was to transit to another flight in Singapore when she was stopped by officers for a more detailed check.

Her backpack was screened via the x-ray machine and anomalies were detected.

The officers also noticed her backpack was unusually heavy.

A big packet of crystalline substances, believed to be Ice, was discovered in a false compartment of the backpack.

She was immediately put under arrest and is being investigated for drug-trafficking.

If convicted, she may face the death penalty.

- CNA/lp

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NBC's Engel free after abduction in Syria

Updated at 5:26 a.m. Eastern

LONDON NBC News said Tuesday morning that veteran foreign correspondent Richard Engel, two of his colleagues and their security guard were free after five days of captivity at the hands of unidentified assailants in Syria.

NBC said in a statement that Engel, who went missing along with his crew on Thursday, was "freed from captors in Syria after a firefight at a checkpoint on Monday, five days after they were taken prisoner." The network did not identify the others who had been abducted with Engel.

"We are pleased to report they are safely out of the country," NBC added.

It remained unclear exactly who abducted Engel and the rest of his team. NBC said only that the captors "were not believed to be loyal to the Assad regime."

According to NBC, two of the captors were killed in the shootout at the checkpoint manned by a Syrian rebel group, the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, an Islamic Salafist group which operates across Syria, but has its strongest presence in the northern city of Idlib.

Several Western journalists have been detained by the increasingly isolated regime of President Bashar Assad, which has virtually banned independent reporting inside Syria. The journalists held by the regime have generally been set free in a matter of days. Others have been abducted and held briefly by armed militant groups fighting against Assad. The myriad rebel militias in Syria have vastly varying

One American journalist, freelance writer Austin Tice, remains missing after disappearing in mid-August. His parents visited Beirut, Lebanon in November, seeking information about their son, but said they still had not learned who was holding him or what condition he was in.

The U.S. government has said Assad's regime is likely holding the 31-year-old former Marine, who had been reporting on Syria's civil war for The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers and others.

Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent, has extensive history reporting on and living in the Middle East. He was reporting on the war from inside Syria when he was captured. His work has won him numerous awards, including five News & Documentary Emmys.

According to NBC, Engel speaks and reads fluent Arabic and can comfortably transition between several Arabic dialects spoken across the Arab world.

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Siblings of Sandy Hook Victims Face Survivor's Guilt

Six-year-old Arielle Pozner was in a classroom at Sandy Hook school when Adam Lanza burst into the school with his rifle and handguns. Her twin brother, Noah, was in a classroom down the hall.

Noah Pozner was killed by Lanza, along with 19 other children at the school, and six adults. Arielle and other students' siblings survived.

"That's going to be incredibly difficult to cope with," said Dr. Jamie Howard, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute in New York. "It is not something we expect her to cope with today and be OK with tomorrow."

READ: Two Adult Survivors of Connecticut School Shooting Will be Key Witnesses

As the community of Newtown, Conn., begins to bury the young victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting today, the equally young siblings of those killed will only be starting to comprehend what happened to their brothers and sisters.

"Children this young do experience depression in a diagnosable way, they do experience post-traumatic stress disorder. Just because they're young, they don't escape the potential for real suffering," said Rahil Briggs, a child psychologist and professor at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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Arielle and other survivor siblings could develop anxiety or other emotional reactions to their siblings' death, including "associative logic," where they associate their own actions with their sibling's death, Howard said.

"This is when two things happen, and (children) infer that one thing caused the other. (Arielle) may be at risk for that type of magical thinking, and that could be where survivor's guilt comes in. She may think she did something, but of course she didn't," Howard said.

CLICK HERE for photos from the shooting scene.

Children in families where one sibling has died sometimes struggle as their parents are overwhelmed by grief, Howard noted. When that death is traumatic, adults and children sometimes choose not to think about the person or the event to avoid pain.

Interested in How to Help Newtown Families?

"With traumatic grief, it's really important to talk about and think about the children that died, not to avoid talking and thinking about them because that interferes with grieving process, want their lives to be celebrated," Howard said.

Children may also have difficulty understanding why their deceased brother or sister is receiving so much, or so little, attention, according Briggs.

"I think one of the most challenging questions we can be faced with as parents is how to 'appropriately' remember a child that is gone. So much that can go wrong with that," Briggs said. "You have the child who is fortunate enough to escape, who thinks 'Why me? Why did my brother go?' But if you don't remember the sibling enough the child says 'it seems like we've forgotten my brother.'"

"They may even find themselves feeling jealous of all the attention the sibling seems to be receiving," Briggs said.

Parents and other adults in the family's support system need to be on alert, watching the child's behavior, she said. Children could show signs of withdrawing, or seeming spacy or in a daze. They could also seem jumpy or have difficulty concentrating in the wake of a traumatic event.

"For kids experiencing symptoms, and interfering with ability to go to school, they may be suffering from acute stress disorder, and there are good treatments," Howard said.

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Year at helm, Kim Jong Un asserts will

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Kim Jong Un has ruled North Korea for one year


• His father, Kim Jong Il died of heart attack on December 17, 2011


• Younger Kim departs from his father's style, but repression, malnutrition remain

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Kim Jong Un cut a somber figure Monday, marking the first anniversary of his father's death. North Korea said Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack from overwork on December 17, 2011.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers assembled outside the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang where the bodies of Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung lie.

Read more: North Korea silences doubters, raises fears with rocket launch

Accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol Ju, who appeared to be heavily pregnant, Kim Jong Un bowed to giant statues of the former leaders inside the mausoleum. Outside, he listened to a commemorative speech from Choe Ryong-hae, head of the military's political arm. Choe praised the achievements of the former leaders before declaring, "Kim Jong Un is North Korea's fate and future."

A lot has changed over the past year. Kim Jong Un has transformed from grieving son to a triumphant leader leading a controversial rocket launch this month.

The 20-something leader, who was suddenly thrust into the limelight last December was considered by many outside, and possibly even inside, North Korea to be ill-prepared for the responsibilities that lay ahead. But experts say it was soon clear that the younger Kim would not be emulating the style of his father.

"Kim Jong Il was rather low profile for a few years after the death of Kim Il Sung which is in accordance with even older Confucian practices," says John Delury assistant professor at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. "This is after all a dynastic system, but Kim Jong Un quickly proved by the spring that he was going to be quite public, quite active."

April 2012 brought with it one of the most significant dates on the North Korean calendar, as it marked the centenary of the birth of the country's founder Kim Il Sung, celebrations for which had been planned for years by the late Kim Jong Il. His son picked up the mantle and controversially launched a rocket in commemoration.

Following his father's example, Kim ignored international condemnation for what he called an attempt to put a working satellite into orbit. Washington, Seoul and others in the region saw the launch as a cover for testing ballistic missile technology.

Read more: Experts: Rocket launch bolsters North Korean leader

The rocket was a failure, made all the more public by the international media which had been invited into the country for the occasion. But disregarding the international embarrassment, Kim Jong Un continued with the celebrations.

"He actually performed quite well by the standard set for him," says Delury. "He spoke in public which is something his father did not and he projected a kind of confidence and energy, he really turned the young and experienced to his advantage."

The world and the people of North Korea heard the voice of the new leader for the very first time. Even more surprising was Kim's acknowledgment of his people's suffering. He told a gathering of hundreds of thousands, "Our Party is determined our people will not have to tighten their belts but will enjoy wealth and the honor of socialism."

Style-wise, Kim cuts a very different figure to his father. He is more personable and willing to interact with his people. He is often seen smiling and laughing and his wife has accompanied him on many field trips, which was unheard of during his father's reign.

Read more: Is Kim Jong Un's uncertainty driving the rockets?

"She's played a very surprising role in constructing this image of a looser, more relaxed, more open leader domestically," adds Delury.

But despite a softer side appearing on camera, little has improved for the people of North Korea. Aid groups say malnutrition is still rampant in the countryside, brutal labor camps still remain and defector groups in Seoul claim Kim has cracked down even harder on people trying to escape. They say the leader has threatened to imprison or even kill three generations of the family left behind. It's a claim CNN cannot independently confirm.

Kim has made his mark on the military, replacing some generals loyal to his father with those loyal to him.

"Certainly everyone has noticed a number of the key military figures, you know four who walked with Kim Jong Il's remains a year ago have sort of disappeared from the scene or have been reshuffled." But his statements on the South Korean or American leadership remain just as bellicose as during the his father's era and he frequently visits military barracks and installations.

Read more: What is life like inside North Korea?

Speculation about internal displeasure among some of those replaced by Kim Jong Un may be easing since last week's successful rocket launch, the second attempt in a year. "I think it earned him a lot of patriotic points," says Jasper Kim, founder of Asia-Pacific Global research Group. "So that will basically placate the military so this will give him extra room to maneuver in terms of making modernization efforts if that's his plan."

Kim Jong Un's use of the media has been a drastic departure from his father's time. Live broadcasts and televised public speeches are no longer so unusual.

Jasper Kim adds, "Kim Jong Un basically grew up on Google and his father grew up on letters and stamps. It's a new era and Kim Jong Un realizes the more he can kind of shape the narrative to the international community, the more it is to his benefit in terms of getting security and money and everything else that he wants for his country."

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6.1-magnitude quake hits off central Indonesia

JAKARTA: A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of central Indonesia Monday, the US Geological Survey said, sending panicked people rushing into the streets but there was no tsunami alert.

The quake struck at 0916 GMT more than 160 kilometres south-southeast of Gorontalo in central Indonesia's Sulawesi island at a depth of 18 kilometres.

The Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics agency (BMKG) measured it at 6.0 at a depth of 10 kilometres.

"The epicentre was in the sea but it doesn't have the potential to trigger a tsunami," BMKG official Agung Utomo told AFP. "We haven't received any report of damage so far."

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said the ground shook for several seconds.

"The quake was quite strong and all the guests here -- about 30 people -- panicked and ran out into the street," said Rudi Gowarno, manager of Ramayana hotel in the town of Luwuk.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where continental plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

- AFP/ir

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NFL Week 15: The best photos

The Jacksonville Jaguars observe a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Connecticut school shooting before their game against the Miami Dolphins at Sun Life Stadium on Sunday, December 16. Check out the action from Week 15 of the NFL and then look back at the best photos from Week 14.

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