Fresh off of another lavish tropical vacation that cost American taxpayer millions of dollars, President Barack Obama is back doing what he does best: searching for ways to chip away at the rights of American citizens.

President Barack Obama is slated Monday to finalize a set of new executive actions tightening the nation’s gun laws, making his first order of business in the new year a clear signal the president in his final year doesn’t intend to go quietly.

At a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and other top law enforcement officials Obama is expected to sign off on a package of proposals aimed at curbing gun violence and cracking down on unregulated gun sales.

At the top of the list is an effort to expand background checks on gun sales by forcing more sellers to register as federally licensed gun dealers. The changes would be aimed at some unregistered sellers who skirt the background check laws by selling at gun shows, online or informal settings. Other moves being considered include improving reporting of lost and stolen weapons and beefing up inspections of licensed dealers, according to a person familiar with the plans who would not be named discussing proposals before they are finalized.

The package includes measures this White House has long considered but not completed, mindful of the legal fight sure to follow as well as the potential for political backlash for some fellow Democrats.

But after a steady string of mass shootings and with the clock on his tenure ticking down, Obama appears primed to push further than he has in the past.

“We definitely think there are things he can do,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates for expanding background checks. Gross says his recent conversations with White House aides have left him hopeful.

“It’s very clear that the White House is feeling emboldened,” he said.

Obama announced the meeting with Lynch in his weekly address from his Hawaii holiday vacation. On Thursday, he’ll take his argument to prime time, participating in a town hall discussion of gun violence on CNN. He’s slated to make his case for changes in his State of the Union address on Jan. 12.

Despite AP reporter Kathleen Hennessey’s tongue bath, Obama isn’t “emboldened.”  He’s desperate to establish some sort of gun control legacy in his final year, after years of not only failing to push his gun control ideology, but actually pushing Americans away from view. Fully 1/3 of guns presently owned by American citizens—more than 100 million firearms—have been purchased during Obama’s seven years in office.

His current raft of executive orders are nothing more than petty incitements, almost certain to be defeated in the courts.

Despite Obama’s best efforts to demonize the right to bear arms, Americans are flocking to them like never before. There are are more guns on the market and a wider range of gun owners now than ever before.

And despite the President and his allies colluding to sell the illusion of a “gun violence epidemic,” the fact remains that per-capita homicides are the lowest they ever been in recorded history in the United States, since the Federal Bureau of Investigation began tracking that data in 1960.

This decline in per-capita homicides occurred as gun ownership went up, and despite the fact that Obama’s Department of Justice refuses to aggressively prosecute gun crimes, with a significant decline of 15% in the past 5 years, including incredible failures to aggressively prosecute straw purchasers.

Obama will leave office the same way he entered it; a small man who loathes the nation he was elected to lead.