PRIORITIES

Since January 8 in Tucson, when a crazy guy with a gun, a 22-year-old with a history of mental instability, opened fire during Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's meeting with her constituents and devastated so many lives, more than 3000 people have been shot dead by guns.

President Barack Obama called it "an unspeakable tragedy."

So what has been done -- has the White House done anything about gun control?

I don't know why some urgent issues are announced and immediately acted upon, and other major, urgent issues are not. But I cannot, will not, try to explain, or complain about the President's agenda.

I know that Obama works behind the scenes on the country's major issues, as he did for an entire year with Health Care. He didn't tell us, nor did the media announce, details about where he was heading with health care until he'd done a lot of phoning, discussing, preliminary conferences -- a great deal of thinking and researching. Only when he knew that he would win, did he and Nancy Pelosi force the historical vote in Congress that won us Health Care.

The fact is, the President has been working on gun control -- doing the phoning, discussing, preliminary conferences.

He's gotten two liberal Justices into the Supreme Court (Sotomayor and Kagan). He now has three of the most powerful men in his administration working on various gun control issues -- David Plouffe, Robert Gibbs, and David Axelrod. They are not saying what Obama plans to do, but they're dropping hints about the President’s intentions.

Obama has also enacted a ban on the importation of semiautomatic guns, which supports more extensive reporting requirements on sales of long guns. Also, he's nominated a very vocal anti-gun zealot, Andrew Traver, to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Traver has openly threatened to impose many new regulations. Asked for an update, officials at the White House told reporters that advisers are “exploring a variety of ways the President could weigh in."

Yes, it's vague talk, and promises from officials. The National Rifle Association is hugely powerful. It's one of Washington's richest lobbying groups. With advertising and promotion, the NRA has successfully been stopping local laws from being passed. Right now, approximately 70% of the country is against gun control.

Like the Health care issue, the White House's preliminary work -- weighing in, thinking, planning -- is essential.

We elected and hired a tactician. The President is handling crises in education, poverty, jobs, real-estate, banks, Wall Street, energy, the current hullabaloo about our own 104 nuclear energy plants, while Congress is threatening to shut down the government.

Is our water poisoned? No, the radioactivity in our water isn't hurting us but the media are promoting it as an urgent issue, while a more urgent issue is on the front burner -- people are being wantonly slaughtered in Libya.

We the people cannot create the priorities, or tell Congress or the President, whom we 'hired' for the job of running the country, what to do.

Obama announced that he will run for re-election -- he did it in a unique way, not selling himself, but talking to people about themselves and what they want and need. That's the tactician.

What can we do about guns? And all the other worrisome, horrendous issues? We can talk, learn, listen, talk back and forth -- push and keep pushing for more information and discussion, and be tacticians, same as President Barack Obama.

And vote wisely, when the time comes.