If you’re sitting the fence on gun control issues these days, there may be another side to this debate to pique your interest. As it turns out, the biggest expenditures in President Obama’s new gun control proposal are actually recycled from his 2011 stimulus bill (h/t Con Carroll):

Obama’s American Jobs Act included $5 billion that “would support the hiring and retention of public safety and first responder personnel.” This is almost identical to the $4 billion in Obama’s gun control plan which calls on Congress “to act on the Administration’s $4 billion proposal to help keep 15,000 cops on the street in cities and towns across the country.”

In 2011, Republicans called this $4 billion for local law enforcement a “blue state bailout.” And that is exactly what it still is today: a way for the Obama administration to funnel resources to big blue states on the brink of fiscal collapse like California and Illinois.

In related news, Heritage Foundation’s president-in-waiting Sen. Jim DeMint appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today for a discussion that touched on gun control proposals circulating around Capitol Hill.  DeMint urged the country to “step back and dig down” to understand the real causes of violence “to make our country safer.

Video after the jump!