Obama gets around gun-laws vote

President Barack Obama has by-passed Congress with a series of actions aimed at curbing gun violence.

The 23 executive actions include measures to encourage schools to hire police officers, increase research on gun violence and improve efforts to prosecute gun crime.

They are part of a package assembled by a task force led by vice president Joe Biden a month after the school shooting Connecticut that killed 20 children.

Mr Obama has ordered the Centres for Disease Control to research gun violence and is seeking rules to ensure that background checks are conducted before police return seized firearms.

He intends to nominate Todd Jones as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Mr Jones is the agency’s acting director.