Obama Talks to Pro-Gun Senator; White House Sketches Policy Shift

President Obama consulted on Tuesday with a pro-gun Democratic senator who has expressed support for new regulations on firearms as the White House sought to shape a comprehensive response to the massacre of schoolchildren last week in Connecticut.

Mr. Obama spoke by telephone with the senator, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a day after the senator said the mass killing in Newtown meant that “everything should be on the table” in terms of gun control. Mr. Obama has asked Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and cabinet secretaries to come up with ways of preventing tragedies, including gun regulation.

The White House hinted at the kinds of gun measures Mr. Obama would embrace. In the past, the president has endorsed the reinstatement of an expired ban on assault weapons without putting any political muscle into it, calculating that the votes were not there. This time, he will be “actively supportive” of a fresh legislative effort, said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. The president will also support closing a gun show loophole and, “potentially,” enacting limits on high-capacity ammunition clips of the sort used in Newtown, Mr. Carney said.

But Mr. Carney said the president hoped to go beyond gun regulation. “He wants to expand the conversation beyond those specific areas of legislation to look at other ways we can address this problem,” he said.

While he did not talk in specifics, Mr. Carney mentioned mental health, education and “perhaps” cultural issues that may contribute to mass killings. He embraced a call by David Axelrod, the president's strategist in the recent election, to rethink violent video games that glorify killing.

“Every expert on this issue would, I think, agree with that, that there are cultural issues that contribute to the broader problem of gun violence,” he said. “One of the reasons why the president wants to expand the n et beyond consideration of gun laws is because he recognizes that” and believes “that we need to look broadly at all of the potential contributors to the scourge of gun violence in this country.”

Mr. Obama met on Monday with Mr. Biden, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to ask them to develop responses to the Newtown shootings. The involvement of Mr. Duncan and Ms. Sebelius was intended to bring education and mental health ideas into the process, in addition to possible gun restrictions.

But the White House has cautioned against expecting quick action, especially given the focus on the fiscal issues dominating Washington in the days before the Christmas holidays. At a briefing on Monday, Mr. Carney used the phrase “coming weeks” 16 times. On Tuesday, he tried to qualify that by calling it a “fairly short period of time.” Mr. Biden's office reported that after an unrelated ceremony on Capitol Hill, he was heading home on Tuesday to Wilmington, Del.

TimesCast Politics: Gun Control After Newtown

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• 0:01  The Business of Gun Politics

  Andrew Ross Sorkin explains how the sale of a gun manufacturer by Cerberus Capital Management after the Newtown shooting affects the debate over gun control.

• 5:07  McCarthy on Legislative Possibilities

  Megan Liberman interviews Representative Carolyn McCarthy, one of the most vocal advocates of gun control, about the outlook on Capitol Hill.

• 9:49  Gun Lobby's Next Moves

  The powerful National Rifle Association faces one of its biggest tests yet, Nicholas Confessore reports.

Senate Democrats Press House for Broader Domestic Violence Bill

House Republicans are expected to bring a new version of the Violence Against Women Act to the House floor sometime before the end of the year. But Democrats warned on Tuesday that if the bill passed in the House, it would not stand a chance in the Senate.

Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the highest-ranking woman in the Senate, said at a news conference that the House's bill to reauthorize the 1994 law would be “an absolute nonstarter” because the legislation is not expected to have additional protections for gays, immigrants, Native Americans and students that were included in a Senate-passed version.

Ms. Murray and the remaining 11 Democratic women in the Senate sent a letter Tuesday to Republican women in the House requesting their help in getting the House to pass the Senate's expanded version of the domestic violence law, which passed in April with the support of 15 Republicans. Only six Democrats voted for House Republicans' version of the bill, which passed in May but did not include the additional protections written in the Senate legislation.

Appealing as “mothers, daughters, grandmothers and women,” the senators wrote, “Saving the lives of women is and should be above politics, and every one of us without regard to party should cast a vote for the safety of all women.”

The letter follows another one sent last week to House Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor, the majority leader, prodding Republicans to “move quickly” on reauthorizing the law, which will expire at the end of the year. That letter was signed by 120 lawmakers, including 10 House Republicans.

Before now, Democrats had used Republicans' reluctance to support the expanded bill to help frame what they called the G.O.P.'s “war on women.” But with the 112th Congress drawing to a close, Democrats need Republican support to get the reauthorization over the finish line.

Previous reauthorizations of the violence act in 2000 and 2005 sailed through Congress with lopsided bipartisan support. But the Senate bill faces opposition in the House from conservatives, who object to three new provisions. One would subject non-Indian suspects of domestic violence to prosecution before tribal courts for crimes allegedly committed on reservations. Another would expand the number of temporary visas for illegal immigrant victims of domestic violence. The last would expand Violence Against Women Act protections to gay, bisexual or transgender victims of domestic abuse.

Conservatives argue that the Senate version is too broad, costs too much, usurps power from state and local authorities and lacks accountability measures.

“All victims of violence, including women, deserve adequate support and robust defense,” Sarah Torre, a research assistant at the Heritage Foundation, wrote on the research group's blog. Using an acronym for the violence act, she added, “But good intentions alone cannot fix the substantive problems with the VAWA reauthorization and will not bring the most effective, efficient protection to vulnerable women.”

Obama Inaugural Committee Announces Some Parade Participants

Two dozen musical bands and other organizations â€" including the Kamehameha Schools Warrior Marching Band from President Obama's native Hawaii, the Lesbian and Gay Band Association from St. Louis, and the Boston Crusades Drum and Bugle Corps â€" have agreed so far to march in the nation's 57th inaugural parade on Jan. 21, Mr. Obama and his inaugural planners said Tuesday.

The groups chosen “reflect the spirit, values and diversity of our great nation,'' Mr. Obama said in a news release announcing the selections, adding that he and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “are honored to have them join us in the parade.”

Invitations to march in the parade - a tradition that dates to George Washington - are being offered and accepted as part of a rolling process, the parade planners said. More than 2,800 online applications were submitted to the task force that is organizing the parade - more than double the nearly 1,400 organizations that applied to take part in Mr. Obama's first inauguration.

The participants are responsible for paying their own lodging and travel expenses to Washington for the inaugural, the planners said. A list of the participants can be found here on the presidential inauguration Web site.

George Washington's inauguration in 1789 was the first such parade. On his way from his home in Mount Vernon, Va., to New York City for the nation's first inaugural event, Washington, a retired general, was accompanied by local militias on the way to Federal Hall, where his swearing-in ceremony was held.

When the ceremony moved to the newly established capital in Washington, Thomas Jefferson charted the modern-day parade route when he rode on horseback down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House after being sworn in for his second term.

Since Jefferson, inaugural planners say, nearly every inauguration has featured a parade, although in 1985 President Ronald Reagan canceled the parade â€" and moved his swearing-in ceremony indoors â€" because of freezing temperatures that the authorities deemed dangerous to the public.

When Abraham Lincoln was sworn in for a second term in 1865, African-Americans participated in the parade for the first time. In 1873, as parade crowds grew larger, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered the construction of a reviewing stand at the White House, where he watched the processional. In 1917, as part of President Woodrow Wilson's second inaugural, women participated in the parade for the first time.

Most inaugural parades last about two hours, Mr. Obama's planners said. (The record for the longest parade is held by President Dwight Eisenhower; his parade lasted four and one half hours and included 73 bands and 59 floats.) President Warren Harding was the first president to drive down Pennsylvania Avenue in a car, and President Jimmy Ca rter was the first to walk from the Capitol to the White House â€" a tradition Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, followed in part in 2009.

The Obamas spent part of the parade, which lasted until after sundown, riding in the president's armored limousine, down a heavily fortified Pennsylvania Avenue. But, overruling advisers who wanted him to stay in the car the whole time, he and Mrs. Obama stepped out twice to walk in the frigid cold along with 10,000 marchers from all 50 states.

Social Security Checks Enter the Debate

WASHINGTON - As part of a deal being negotiated by President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner to avert the worst of the year-end tax increases and spending cuts, Social Security payments might be lower in the future for millions of Americans.

On Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans were examining a multitrillion-dollar deficit reduction package put forward by the president, though the two sides were trading barbed remarks and aides were emphasizing that nothing was final until the whole deal was done.

But the White House seemed willing to make a concession to Republicans with a switch in the formula that ensures that Social Security payments keep up with the pace of inflation - an idea that immediately proved unpopular with its liberal base.

“Any talk of shrinking the program to save money is flawed from the start because Social Security is not part of the national budget in the same way as military spending,” Representative Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona said in a statement. “It's paid for through a dedicated payroll tax separate from general budgeting.”

Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York was among many on the left who echoed that sentiment. “Everyone has a grandparent, a friend or a neighbor who relies on the Social Security benefits they earned to pay for medical care, food and housing,” he said in a statement. “A move towards chained Consumer Price Index would be a long-term benefit cut for every single person who receives a Social Security check.”

Democrats and Republicans are considering switching Social Security payment adjustments to a “chained” Consumer Price Index. The Consumer Price Index tracks the price of a basket of commonly purchased household goods. A chained index accounts for consumers' tendency to substitute similar items for one another as prices fluctuate. A consumer might buy more apples when the price of oranges increases, for instance.

Though it sounds like nothing more than a technical fix, adopting a chained index would squeeze benefits over time. The chained index ends up, in a given year, about 0.3 percentage points lower than the unchained index. That difference accumulates, so after five years, it might be 1.5 percentage points lower. Using a chained index would cut Social Security spending by about $112 billion over a decade, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

AARP, the lobbying and research group for older Americans, immediately criticized the proposal. “We would rather see a broader discussion addressing retirement security,” said Debra Whitman, an executive vice president at AARP. “We object to the context in which it's being discussed, which is a few weeks before Christmas, without people understanding what the change really means.”

Because the payment reductions would accumulate over time, AARP and other groups argue that they would hit the oldest Americans disproportionately hard. They might also unduly burden women, who tend to live longer than men, and the lowest-income older people, who are most dependent on Social Security checks, the groups warned.

Some economists and policy experts have also argued that both the current and the chained indexes underestimate the inflation that older Americans experience. The government produces an experimental “elderly index,” for instance, that tries to capture the consumption habits of people over 62 more accurately than other measures. For instance, older people buy more health care and less education than the average family, so the elderly index puts more weight on the former and less on the latter.

In no small part because of spiraling health care costs, inflation as measured by the elderly index has grown faster than inflation as calculated by the standard index that Social Security uses. That implies that the purchasing power of Social Security payments linked to a chained index would erode more over time, given what older Americans buy.

Still, other economists and policy experts from across the political spectrum have argued that a chained index is a more accurate measure of the inflation that households actually experience, and therefore is a better policy tool. They note that the elderly index is still experimental, and that not just older people receive or spend Social Security payments.

“We know that the current measure of inflation is not adequately measuring experienced inflation, and we should hence go with the better measure,” said Christian E. Weller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group based in Washington, and the author of a plan to modernize Social Security.

Both liberals and conservatives have at times argued against making changes to Social Security outside the context of a broader overhaul. Many analysts - particularly Democrats - argue that Social Security does not contribute to long-term deficits because it has its own financing stream in payroll taxes. But it does have a long-term fiscal challenge, as payouts would eventually overwhelm its trust fund and revenues.

“Back when the system started, the demographics were really favorable,” said Andrew G. Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning research group in Washington. “You could provide decent benefits for the rich and poor alike at low cost. You can't do that anymore, mathematically. We could provide decent benefits for the rich and the poor by raising taxes a lot, but we need to raise taxes for other things.”

Mr. Biggs said Social Security changes that provided more ample benefits to vulnerable low-income older people and less to the well-off might prove to be a better path forward.

“We oppose chained C.P.I.,” Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont, said in an interview. “But I think all of us are waiting to see the details in the final package, and we'll make our determination then.”

A Rising Chorus, But Not Quite Consensus, On Guns

The reaction to the Newtown shootings spread to corporate America on Tuesday, as a private equity firm said it would immediately sell the company that made the assault-style rifle used in shootings. Separately, Dick's Sporting Goods, the national chain, suspended the sale of “modern sporting rifles.”

Around the country, gun-control advocates continued on Tuesday to seize on public grief and anger about Friday's massacre of 20 young children to insist on quick, broad action by President Obama and Congress to regulate firearms, confront mental illness and address violence in the media and video games.

Residents of Newtown, Conn., where a young man killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, as well as his mother and himself, announced the formation of a new group called Newtown Uni ted, focused on turning the tragedy in their community into political pressure to confront the country's gun culture.

“I would like, when you think of Sandy Hook, you think, ‘Oh, that's where they banned assault weapons,' ” John Neuhoff, a Newtown resident, told Reuters. “If we can ban fireworks, we should be able to ban assault weapons.”

Four days after the shootings, the gun-control debate is intensifying even as the residents of Newtown slowly carry on with the grim task of burying their loved ones. Funerals for the victims of the shooting are being held throughout the week, ahead of the Christmas holiday next Tuesday.

In announcing the sale of the gun manufacturer, the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management made clear that the decision stemmed from the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary Schoo l. “It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level,” Cerberus said in a news release.

The firm said it planned to sell the Freedom Group, which makes the .223 Bushmaster rifle used in the massacre. Cerberus acquired Bushmaster in 2006, later merging it with other gun companies to create the Freedom Group.

Tuesday's announcement follows a statement from the California State Teachers' Retirement System, a large pension fund, that it was reviewing its investment in Cerberus in light of the firm's holding in the Freedom Group.

Cerberus is one of several private equity firms that have holdings in gun manufacturers. Colt Defense, which was spun out of the maker of the .44-40 Colt revolver, is jointly owned by Sciens Capital Managemen t, a fund advised by the Blackstone Group and another fund operated by Credit Suisse.

Dick's Sporting Goods, as part of its announcement, also said it had “removed all guns from sale and from display in our store nearest to Newtown.”

At the same time, some gun-rights advocates said that they would resist new limits on firearms and two of the nation's Republican governors said the Connecticut shootings should not curtail the rights of their citizens to carry concealed weapons.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas told a Tea Party group on Monday that he opposed “knee-jerk reaction from Washington, D.C.” in the wake of the shootings and said that school teachers and administrators should be allowed to carry concealed weapons, according to The Dallas Morning News.

In Ohio, Gov. John R. Kasich said he still inten ded to sign a bill allowing guns in the parking garages of the State Capitol building, saying in a statement to The Cleveland Plain Dealer that he is “a Second Amendment supporter and that's not going change.”

“There are a range of issues at play here involving mental health, school security and a culture that at times fails to reject the glorification of violence that can desensitize us to the sanctity and majesty of life,” Mr. Kasich told the paper. “Going forward, we need to pay close attention to what the experts conclude from this incident in order to see if there are lessons to be learned and applied here in Ohio.”

The nation's largest gun rights organization - the National Rifle Association - remained largely silent Tuesday even as some gun-right advocates began speaking up against new gun regulations.

“Automobiles kill more pe ople on our streets than guns do,” Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, said on CNN's “Piers Morgan” show Monday night. “This was a maniac in a state that had a lot of gun control.”

Still, the events in Newtown appear to have energized gun-control advocates who view the somber aftermath of the tragedy as an opportunity - but only if change comes quickly, before the memory of the children and their teachers fades.

Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, wrote that the killings of the children in Connecticut should prompt America to confront its failures when it comes to accepting a culture of violence.

“If this traged y does not produce universal gun control, what can and what will?” Mr. Wiesel wrote. “What else do we need for preventing further horrors such as this?”

On the White House Web site, a petition calling for the immediate introduction of gun-control legislation had gathered 173,000 signatures by Tuesday morning. The petition, which is on a page that lets people post petitions, calls for “a set of laws that regulates how a citizen obtains a gun.”

In Washington, another group is collecting signatures for a separate petition from people who will promise to call the White House and their member of Congress every month until new laws are passed. The Web site - gunpromise.com - went live Monday evening.

Late Monday night, David Letterman, the comedic host of CBS's “Late Show” offered a rare, serious commentary, noting that there have been 70 school shootings since 1994. Mr. Letterman said he was encouraged by Mr. Obama's speech at Sunday's memorial that he is poised to take action.

“So right there, I feel better,” Mr. Letterman said. “It can't be an ‘excuse for inaction.' That means he's committed. He is going on the record. Some kind of action.”

The calls for action follow Monday's reversals by some Democratic lawmakers who have for years been opposed to stricter gun rules. They were echoed Tuesday by many columnists and newspaper editorials who took Washington politicians - including Mr. Obama - to task for dragging their feet after past mass shootings.

In an editorial, The New York Post urged lawmakers to ban assault rifles that have been used in several of the recent mass shootings.

“Weapons designed expressly to kill human beings, and then modified (wink wink) to meet the federal machine-gun ban, have no legitimate place in American society,” The Post wrote. “Time to get rid of them.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote in an editorial that lawmakers should consider revisions to the Constitution's Second Amendment if necessary to place limits on gun ownership.

“Any serious discussion of preventing more slaughters has to start with significant restrictions on the availability of high-power firearms and large magazines,” the paper wrote. “But it also has to examine how guns are bought and sold in this country and the terms under which people can own them. It has to be far-ranging and fearless, inc luding the possible repeal or revision of the Second Amendment if that is what it takes to regulate private arsenals and enact meaningful gun control.”

But Mr. Obama and some lawmakers continue to be vague about what specific new laws or regulations they might support in the weeks and months ahead.

In a statement, Heidi Heitkamp, the Democratic senator-elect from North Dakota, said only that she would “give thoughtful and studied consideration” to any proposals for new laws about mental health and guns in the country.

“Many ideas will be put forth, and I will give thoughtful and studied consideration to any legislation that may arise as result of this tragedy,” Ms. Heitkamp said. “As always, I will listen closely to North Dakotans and seek their input on any possible changes to current law.”

Late Monday evening, David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, e-mailed millions of people on the president's campaign database, urging them to watch a video of the president's speech at the memorial service Sunday.

“We must also, as the president urged, consider how each of us can play a part in making our country worthy of the memory of those little children,” Mr. Axelrod said.

But the e-mail, which links to a page at the president's campaign Web site, does not offer any specifics for the president's supporters. Mr. Axelrod remains as vague about the need for action as the president's spokesman, Jay Carney, was on Monday.

Mark Scott contributed reporting.

Obama and Biden to Attend National Prayer Service

President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will go to the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 22, the day after their second inaugural ceremony, to participate in the National Prayer Service, held every four years to commemorate the inauguration of the president.

Mr. Obama's inaugural committee will issue a formal announcement about the event later Tuesday morning, and the official said details about the other participants would become available in the coming weeks.

The issue of religion has often bedeviled Mr. Obama during his presidency; during his 2008 presidential campaign, his longtime rel ationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a black pastor prone to provocative comments, stirred controversy. And Mr. Obama offended gay rights activists at his second inaugural by inviting the Rev. Rick Warren, an outspoken opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage, to deliver the invocation.

The National Prayer Service, a tradition that dates back to the presidency of George Was hington, will include prayers, readings, blessing and hymns delivered by religious leaders from across the United States, the official said, adding that it will represent “America's diversity of faith and belief.”

In Shooting Aftermath, Axelrod Says Focus Should Also Be on Video Games

While much of Washington has focused on what to do about guns in the aftermath of the school shooting in Connecticut, at least one adviser to President Obama also wants the country to think about what to do about violent video games.

David Axelrod, the president's senior campaign strategist, has made a point of singling out the proliferation of casual violence in games aimed at children and young adults.

“In NFL post-game: an ad for shoot ‘em up video game,” he wrote on Twitter after watching Mr. Obama's speech in Newtown, Conn., on Sunday night. “All for curbing weapons of war. But shouldn't we also quit marketing murder as a game?”

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Axelrod stressed that he was not speaking for the president but reacting viscerally to a television commercial that brought home the nature of some video games. “It exalts violence and cheapens life and desensitizes people to the meaning of all this,” he said. “I don't know if any of this had anything to do with this particular incident. But there's no doubt that if you spend hours a day winning a game by killing as many people as you can, that has to have some impact.”

Mr. Axelrod added that he was not suggesting a legislative or administrative regulation but greater responsibility by parents, businesses and society at large. “We all express horror,” he said. “Let's act on it and exercise some judg ment.”

The Early Word: Deal?

Today's Times

• President Obama delivered a new offer to Speaker John A. Boehner on Monday to resolve the pending fiscal crisis, Jonathan Weisman reports. The offer, which would raise revenues but keep in place the Bush-era tax rates for any household with earnings below $400,000, may put the two sides close to a final deal. The proposal could be evidence of a phenomenon that Jackie Calmes explores in a Memo From Washington: how the emotionally wrenching school shooting could work to soften the hearts of politicians as they work on the deficit problem.

• Many pro-gun Congressional Democrats signaled an openness to new restrictions on Monday, a shift that demonstrates the rapidly changing attitudes to ward gun control in the aftermath of the Connecticut massacre, Jennifer Steinhauer and Charlie Savage write.

• Representative Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, was appointed to replace Jim DeMint in the United States Senate on Monday, a move that will make him the sole black lawmaker in the Senate and the first to serve from the South since the late 19th century, Jeff Zeleny writes.

• Interviews with residents of one Michigan Congressional district suggest that constituents may be open to federal tax increases, but only if spending is cut, too, Jeremy W. Peters reports.

• Senator Daniel K. Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who broke racial barriers on Capitol Hill, died on Monday after 48 years in the Senate, Robert D. McFadden writes.

• Many ultraconservatives and Tea Party crusaders are still distressed over the re-election of President Obama, with some of them expressing their anger by hanging upside-down American flags in their yards, Dirk Johnson reports.

Around the Web

• Now that Mr. Obama is expected to select Senator John Kerry to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, The Hill is reporting that former Gov. Michael Dukakis, Democrat of Massachusetts, is being looked at as Mr. Kerry's interim re placement in the Senate.

• Politico: Representative K. Michael Conaway, Republican of Texas, will become chairman of the House Ethics Committee in the next Congress, bringing the total of Texas Republicans who chair full committees to five.

• Ben Affleck, star of the movie “Argo,” will be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to testify before the House Armed Services Committee on “the evolving security situation” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Hill reports.