Obama Admin Working On Gun Control Executive Order
Purported to close “gun show loophole” regarding background checks
In stark contrast to French president Francois Hollande’s strong response to the Paris terror attacks, Obama gave a half-hearted address to the nation four days after the San Bernardino terror attack . . . and busied himself with gun control.
According to the AP, the Obama administration is working on an executive order that would “close the gun show loophole”:
President Barack Obama’s advisers are finalizing a proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval.
White House adviser Valerie Jarrett says the president has asked his team to complete a proposal and submit it for his review “in short order.” She says the recommendations will include measures to expand background checks.
. . . . White House officials have said they’re exploring closing the so-called “gun show loophole” that allows people to buy weapons at gun shows and online without a background check.
The Guardian has further details, including a statement by Valerie Jarrett who seems to be spear-heading this move:
Barack Obama has ordered officials to draw up an urgent new plan to strengthen background checks on gun buyers without the approval of Congress.
The president has asked his advisers to complete a proposal and submit it for his review, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said.
“The president has directed his team in short order to finalise a set of recommendations on what more the administration can do on its own to save lives from gun violence, and those recommendations will include making sure we do everything we can to keep guns out of the wrong hands, including those expanded background checks,” Jarrett told a national gun violence vigil in Washington.
Watch the following report:
Not only is there debate about the “gun show loophole,” but according to the recent uptick in gun manufacturer stocks and the historical high in the sale of guns and ammo, Americans are not interested in further gun control.
However, the White House believes that there is an appetite for gun control in the country, an appetite about which apparently only they are aware.
The Guardian continues:
On Thursday, the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said the review that Jarrett referred to had been under way for “the past couple of months” but claimed there was now increased appetite for fresh reform attempts among the US public in the recent weeks.
“These are essentially recommendations that the president has asked for from his staff based on their review of available executive authority,” Earnest told reporters on Thursday.
“The working assumption of this ongoing review is that Congress hasn’t acted and that’s been the source of immense frustration on the part of the president,” he added. “So given the congressional inaction, the question that’s been raised is what more can the Obama administration do, and that’s the substance of this review.”
. . . . Jarrett told Wednesday night’s vigil: “Americans are mobilising. Two weeks ago I met at the White House with a group of gun owners who believe in the need for change. Many were former NRA [National Rifle Association] members who made clear to me that the NRA no longer represents them, and they assured me that many more gun owners were feeling the same.”
Charles Cooke, writing at the National Review, calls the plan a “big nothing.”
It’s almost certain that Jarrett is referring to the same plan that Obama has been flirting with for a while: To redefine “gun dealer” so that the ATF can go after a handful of people who sell multiple firearms privately. Frankly, that plan is a big nothing. As I explained a month or so ago:
Even if we presume that the plan is both legal and workable — and, given how tightly both USC18§921 and USC18§922 are written, I am as skeptical as the president was a few hours ago — the benefits would be microscopic. Were Obama to change the regulations, the Post confirms, he would ensnare only “those dealers who sell at least 50 guns annually” — a tiny fraction of those who sell firearms on the private market. He would not be “closing the gun-show loophole”; he would not be “extending background checks to private sales”; and he would not be elongating the three-day period during which the government is able to search for disqualifying information. Nor, for that matter, would he be banning a single “assault” weapon, limiting even one magazine, or confiscating even a part of a gun. He’d be posturing, and uncomfortably at that.
Moreover, the clock is not in Obama’s favor here. The Administrative Procedure Act requires that the new “rule” be presented for notice and comment before becoming active. That means that, if Obama follows the law, he probably won’t get this done by the time he leaves office. And if he doesn’t follow the law? Well, then he risks being slapped down by a federal court. As for the proposal itself, a serious statutory challenge is all but inevitable.
Unless Obama has something else up his sleeve I wouldn’t worry too much about this. He’s playing to the cameras and to the ignorant.
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Comments
“This seems like yet another empty gesture designed to pander to his base and to distract from his failures as Commander in Chief in the face of the ISIS threat to our nation and her people.”
Yep.
Well, THAT and all the OTHER wreckage Barracula has left in his wake.
And when he fails to get the changes, either through EO or Congress, the R’s will once again get the blame.
Early in the Obama years people bought guns because they were afraid that Obama would ban gun sales.
Now, they buy guns just because they are afraid.
Notice that there are NO details or description of what this supposed order would actually say.
Charles Cooke is merely speculating about what it might say, because that’s the only actual proposal we’ve ever seen. As he says, if that’s all it is, it would barely affect anybody, and would actually make life harder for the gun grabbers. A fixed legal definition of who is a dealer would strip the ATF of its current ability to threaten people. Everyone would know for certain whether they were considered dealers or not. So as far as I’m concerned, I wish 0bama would go for it.
But if it’s not that, then what could it be? Basically all the linked articles say is that 0bama has asked his staff for ideas as to what he can legally do, and their answer is likely to be “nothing”.
Trying to re-define “dealers” might put all those “Kitchen-Table Dealers” that Bill Clinton was so proud of getting rid of right back in business.
Of course, during Clinton’s terms, Internet gun sales had not come of age yet to compete with brick-and-mortar stores. The only thing stopping a lot of us from going ahead and getting the Dealer FFL is having to deal with all the city/county business licensing headaches.
His next question will be “What do you thing we can get away with?”
“He’s playing to the cameras and to the ignorant.”
____________________
Of course. He always is. After all, those are the people who twice put this loser in the White House: the media, and the ignorant voters who mindlessly believe whatever the media tell them to believe.
Will it close the open border loophole and the federal government gun walking loophole?
And what about elective abortion and clinical cannibalism that takes over one million American lives annually?
It seems his priorities are misaligned with reality and purported motives.
Make life, not abortion, right?
If every transfer will require a NICS background check, it would put an end to loaning your gun to your buddy or letting him shoot it at the range, even if you are standing next to him. It would also mean your heirs would have to pass a background check to inherit your guns too. It would also put an end to buying your husband or wife or kid a gun for their birthday or Christmas too. This executive order will have quite far reaching effects beyond just “closing the gun show loophole” (which doesn’t exist.)
The problem there is that he just can’t do that by himself. The statutes are pretty clear about who is and is not a dealer, and to firm up that border in his direction would take rule making under the APA. But, he can’t afford to go the APA route because he would get hundreds of thousands, if not millions of comments from the public, all of which have to at least be read. This is, BTW, the problem that he is facing in the 5th Circuit right now with his immigration programs – that his Administration essentially issued rules without bothering to go through the APA rule making process. The 5th Circuit has stayed the “rules” nationally, and the Administration has petitioned for Cert with the Supreme Court.
My problem with universal background checks (which isn’t quite the subject at the moment) is that universal background checks which include private sales would require universal registration. Otherwise, how would anyone know if I gave my son a gun or sold one to my neighbor? Right now, in this state, they don’t know.
The local sheriff reported record applications for carry permits Friday. Fortunately, Georgia is a “Shall Issue” state and the sheriff is in favor of self-defense and the Second Amendment anyway.
“gun show loophole” that allows people to buy weapons at gun shows and online without a background check.”
How do you close a loophole that doesn’t actually exist? Gun Show Loophole is a lie, plain and simple.
Yup, “gun show loophole” is a lie of the first water. I suppose that Obama could sign some kind of convoluted executive action and claim it solves the gun show loophole. Fix a lie with another lie – kind of like a two year old caught with cookie crumbs on his lips and the lid to the jar in his hands.
Obama can redefine dealer to mean any private individual who sells 50+ guns per year but it’s going to be impossible to enforce. There’s no paperwork required in a private sale. The ATF would have to single out a private seller and record 51 sales in a one year period. They don’t even have the manpower to inspect all legal dealers, how are they going to accomplish that?
Remember we are talking about libtards here. I doesn’t have to actually work or make sense, hell it can even screw up a system that works pretty well (Obamacare) as long as it “feels” and “looks” good.
Dedicate a team to single out one “dealer” as an example “pour l’encouragement des autres.”
Never buy for need, only for want….
Yes we must close this ‘loophole’ because of this epidemic of mass shootings committed with weapons acquired from gun shows.
An epidemic of zero.
Brilliant.
The intent is to publicize that Obama wants to do those things so that the hoplophobe LibDems feel good. As Cooke noted the end result will be a nothing-burger. All smoke and mirrors.
Less gun control, more Muslim control.
Again, I fail to see what this has to do with interstate commerce and challenge whether he has the authority under the U.S. Constitution to do this.
Oh, we know its not legal, heck they know its not legal, but that doesn’t matter to them, because the law doesn’t apply unless it fits their world view.