Obama Meets Bloomberg on Gun Control – What Could go Wrong?
Plan will bypass Congress once again.
While everyone in the media was talking about the Republican debate yesterday, Obama quietly met with former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to discuss gun control.
Jordan Fabian reported at The Hill:
Obama meets with Bloomberg to talk guns
President Obama on Wednesday met with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an ally of the White House on gun control.
The meeting, which was not on the president’s public schedule, comes as he is weighing new executive action on guns in response to a series of mass shootings that have marred his presidency.
Obama huddled with Bloomberg “as part of the administration’s continuing push to address gun violence in America,” the White House said in a statement.
“The two discussed ways to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have access to them and what more could be done at the state and local level to help address gun violence in America,” the White House added.
Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, a close Obama confidante who has spearheaded the White House’s gun-control push, also attended the meeting.
It’s rather telling that less than 24 hours after every major Republican in the country was debating national security policy, the president was meeting with the patron saint of the nanny state to discuss curbing the right of Americans to defend themselves.
Earlier this week, Josh Siegel of The Daily Signal explained what’s going on here:
What You Need to Know About Obama’s Plan to Bypass Congress on Guns
Stymied by Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama is expected to act alone to take executive action to tighten restrictions on gun sales.
White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, speaking at a vigil last week for victims of the 2012 Newtown, Conn., shooting, confirmed that the president has asked his staff to complete a proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval.
Before Jarrett’s public pronouncement, The New York Times and other media have reported the Obama administration’s action would broaden the definition of who is considered a high-volume gun dealer, a move that could force background checks for certain sales at gun shows, online, and in other areas that fall outside the law.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 already requires professional gun dealers to be licensed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Buyers of guns from federally licensed dealers are subject to background checks.
But the existing law doesn’t clearly define what it means to be in the business of selling guns.
Obama’s executive action would intend to clarify that distinction in a way that broadens who is in the gun-selling business, so that more sales are “on the books” and thus require a background check.
Once again, Obama puts his agenda ahead of the concerns of the American people.
We shouldn’t have expected anything less.
Featured image is a screen cap from Forbes.
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Comments
I bet the omnibus bill includes new restrictions on guns.
I’m certain it doesn’t. What do I win, chump?
What to start a civil war that you won’t win Obama?
Just keep violating our Constitution and see what happens?
Gun confiscation is probably the ONLY issue that could lead to armed rebellion. That is one reason why it won’t be implemented. But – the second reason is even more important.
Reason #2 – If the Dems did not have guns to blame for everything the party would fall apart. They would have to start blaming people.
“…so that more sales are “on the books” and thus require a background check.”
OK. I’m sure this will cause the terrorists and gang bangers and the illegal alien drug running criminals to all think twice and shake in their boots before letting their guns loose to walk the streets and do ‘gun violence”. Yep! I’m sure the gun black market will comply, too.
Just wait and see. These bad guys will all be corralled. Fake visas and passports are being vetted by the “highly effective vetting system” of the federal government. This information is also “on the books”.
~~~
Of course, putting names in a ‘book’ does nothing to stop an act of violence by one of the above. This is so after-the-fact crazy that it is worthy of the legacy Obama is trying to produce.
“And now the end is near”…
Obama’s presidential library should be on the south side of Chicago and right in the middle of the black-on-black gun violence areas. This is where names could be recorded “on the books”. And, I suggest a shrine built with a finger pointing skirt wearing Obama statute in front.
“Tighten restrictions on gun sales” — what is he going to do, waive more straw man sales, so that New Yorkers will get killed, instead of Mexicans?
By all reports he is not planning to tighten restrictions on sales at all. The only specific proposal I’ve seen reported anywhere is to precisely define who is a dealer, instead of leaving it to the ATFE’s “discretion”, if one can use that term of that clown-house. That would have no effect at all on sales. It would merely persuade some people on the margin to get out of the business, or to keep their annual sales below a certain number, while persuading others to get into the business, since if they’re paying for a license and going through all the rigmarole they may as well make it worthwhile. It would also assure anyone whose sales fall below the definition that they are safe, and needn’t worry that some vindictive ATFE agent would decide they are a dealer.
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. A mountain gave birth to a mouse. This post is way overblown. If all he’s planning to do is put a definition on who is a dealer, then (1) he would not be bypassing Congress, since Congress left it open for a president to do so; (2) it would have almost no effect on anybody; and (3) it would be a good thing, because it would take away the ATFE’s current ability to threaten people with classifying them as dealers and making them get a license.
Precision in the law is always a good thing; flexibility always works to the bureaucrats’ interest and the public’s detriment. So if 0bama wants to make an objective rule for who is a dealer and who isn’t then we should welcome it, while understanding that 99.9% of dealers and purchasers (and 100% of current owners) would never notice the change.
“Precision in the law is always a good thing; flexibility always works to the bureaucrats’ interest and the public’s detriment.”
Now on that I completely agree. Never give a politician or a bureaucrat room to weasel around if you can manage it!
I wonder if the Rule of Unintended Consequences will come back to bite the administration in the rear with this. If they define ‘gun dealer’ to be X guns per year, and the ATF is currently prosecuting a ‘dealer’ for selling X-1 guns, won’t that put a spike into the prosecution?
Precisely. And that’s why every time this has been proposed in the past the ATFE has resisted it, and why they’ll resist it now too.
I completely agree, as long as the limit he sets is reasonable. If he tries to say selling 10 guns a year makes you a dealer, that is far too strict.
The limit should be 25 guns or even higher.
The only number I’ve ever seen proposed is 50. 25 seems like a stretch. If someone isn’t even selling a gun a fortnight, it’s hard to say he’s “in the business”. But fine, let it be 25. That would still better than having no number, and letting the ATFE bully people. At least people would know that if they sell only 24 a year they’re safe. And 99.9% of people buying and selling guns would never notice.
50 is the number I’ve heard bandied about for years, too. That’s one sale a week, with two weeks vacation. Not exactly a volume dealer, but more than a private owner selling to friends. As you note, that is not huge and not necessarily bad.
What PO’s me about this is that this is the stuff the “conservatives” in congress should be working on. All it would take is inserting a definition into a bill as a rider and they could shut this down and take away Obumbles bragging rights. But that probably makes to much sense.
The Hill:
Dems introduce bill to ban assault weapons
http://thehill.com/regulation/263489-assault-weapons-ban-targets-semi-automatic-guns
“Now, let’s remember that assault weapons were first designed for the battlefield by Germans during the Second World War,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who is leading congressional efforts to ban these types of guns. “The sole purpose of their existence was to kill as many people as quickly as possible during military combat.”
http://cicilline.house.gov/press-release/cicilline-and-121-house-colleagues-introduce-assault-weapons-ban-2015
The Assault Weapons Ban of 2015 will prohibit the sale, transfer, production, and importation of:
Semi-automatic rifles and handguns with a military-style feature that can accept a detachable magazine;
Semi-automatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds;
Semi-automatic shotguns with a military-style feature;
Any ammunition feeding device that can hold more than 10 rounds;
And 157 specifically-named and listed firearms.
Increased Christmas sales of 157 specifically-named and listed firearms in 3… 2… 1…
I can’t wait to see what I have that’s on the banned list.
…which has a snowball’s chance in hell of passage.
It’s all boob-bait for Collectivist boobs. Popular support for MORE gun laws is at an all-time low.
Just because it won’t (and can’t) pass now, doesn’t mean it vanishes. The text of the bill will be stashed in every leftist’s computer in DC, just waiting for the President/House/Senate to turn D/D/D again, at which point a thousand zombie pieces of leftist drivel just like this will all be jammed together and rammed through just like they did seven years ago, only worse.
Just one more reason to make sure that never happens again.
Oh, yeah. And the Republicans in Congress would never cooperate to pass a bill that the majority of Americans oppose…
That’s right, they wouldn’t, because they believe in the 2A. There is no way a bill like this would get more R votes for than D votes against.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), another democrat who didn’t have the balls to actually use an assault rifle against an enemy and thinks all rifles are evil. It least asshats like him have taught millions of Americans a little Greek…Molan Labe!
The text isn’t available online yet but for those who want to check later, it’s H.R.4269.
pfft, if it ever actually makes it out of committee then I will worry about the text. I think it has to go through 3 committee’s, not worth worrying about until then.
I’m not concerned but I do believe it’s useful to see exactly to what extent the democrats want to strip American citizens of our protected rights.
When I hear a left winger talk about “gun nuts”, my response is: You want to strip me of constitutionally protected rights and I’M the nut?
Well then the text of this bill doesn’t help you, because this is not the extent of what they want. It’s just what they’re proposing now. You know what they want: total disarmament.
“Now, let’s remember that assault weapons were first designed for the battlefield by Germans during the Second World War,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.).
Who, in addition to being a liberty-hating Collectivist, is ALSO a history-hating Collectivist.
You could buy a BAR (Browning automatic rifle) or a fully automatic Tommy gun BEFORE WWII, and the BAR was in use during WWI.
So, another lying moron.
That the military and political definitions of “assault rifle” are meaningfully different and “assault weapon” is a blunt term are obvious. While there is one if not two examples of true assault rifle designs pre WWI, semiauto sporting rifles were given a go in the trenches of WWI. Safe to say every form of firearm has been used in war. The Dem uses classic Orwellian doctrine…use the present to lie about the past to pave the way to future bans. It requires the public to be ignorant of history and the Dems have made that possible….in spades.
Everybody who has been paying attention to the Democrats never ending demagoguery about guns is aware that gun related homicides have declined 49% since 1993. That ought to be considered a positive social trend by any rational human being.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/
If Obama actually cared about saving lives he’d focus his attention on a social trend going in the exact opposite direction as gun homicides, and that is deaths from drug overdoses. That is a real crisis. Again. According to NIH statistics gathered by the National Institute of Drug Abuse:
Heroin overdose deaths are up 6x since 2001. Deaths from benzodiazepines (common brands names Valium and Xanax, among MANY others) are up 5x since 2001. Deaths from prescription pain killers are up by a factor of 3.4x since 2001.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates
Democrats could even use their favorite playbook and rally support from their base by demonizing a specific industry – Big Pharma – in the same way they’ve demonized coal, oil, guns, etc. Stoke the hate for Big Pharma by using standard Democrat rhetoric about how Big Pharma is getting rich by profiting from drug overdoses and all that. Oh, wait. Big Pharma backed Obamacare. And since its passage, they’ve been lobbying Republicans heavily. Presumably, to keep it in place. Never mind.
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=h04
The gun industry and NRA don’t donate to Democrats much any more (which is a big mistake in our corrupt system), so Democrats will continue to rally their base by demonizing guns.
Any chance we can get Barranca and others to start weighing in on the topic of Universal Background Checks. Currently, Dems point to how well that phrase is polling. It sounds nice, friendly and reasonable…. until you understand exactly how onerous and repulsive what Bloomberg has in mind is. This is from WaPo (The Volokh Conspiracy on Nov 5) of all places:
“Under the Bloomberg laws, all private sales of firearms, and most temporary loans of firearms, may take place only at a gun store. The store must treat the private sale or loan exactly as if it were selling a firearm out of its own inventory. Because the only way to privately purchase or borrow a handgun is via a gun store intermediary, and because federal law forbids gun stores from transferring handguns to persons under 21, persons under 21 are thereby prohibited from acquiring handguns. The same is true for any gun for a person under 18. This is a major, sub silentio, expansion of gun prohibition, without public debate.
In the new Washington law (and its proposed federal counterpart), only a “bona fide gift” between family members is allowed. If family members want to loan guns to each other, they must have the loan processed by a gun store. If the family member is under 21 (for handguns) or under 18 (for all guns), the gun store cannot process the transfer, and thus the loan is impossible. So a mother may not loan her handgun to her 20-year-old daughter to take for protection on a camping trip. Nor to her 18-year-old son, who wants to go to a target range for the afternoon. A 17-year-old may have a hunting license in many states. But his father may not loan him a shotgun to use for hunting.
The exceptions in the Bloomberg laws are insufficient. In Washington, loans of firearms to minors are allowed if the person will be “under the direct supervision and control” of a person over 21. This presumes that persons of college age, some of whom have served in the military, lack the maturity to go hunting or camping with friends their own age, and not under the supervision of an older person.”
Until there is a concerted effort to put this definition into the public conversation, we are leaving a door wide open for Dems to curtail 2A Rights into the dust bin of history.
This has no chance of passing. The only UBC law that might have a chance is one that only applies to permanent transfers of ownership, and that lets anybody with a gun for sale run background checks on potential buyers at no charge. Anything that requires going through a dealer, and paying the dealer for the service, will not pass.
UBC has every chance of bypassing Congress as a fait accompli under Executive Order. It is only polling well because no one has any clue what is being proposed.
How could any executive order achieve UBC? What could the order possibly say that would result in UBC?
Ban armed bodyguards for all but president and the succession list.
Let Bloomberg wander around unarmed and unprotected like the majority of citizens.
Why allow it for them? We are a republic, not a monarchy. The president’s life is no more valuable than that of the poorest citizen. If everyone else must go unprotected, then so should the president.
“The president’s life is no more valuable than that of the poorest citizen.”
All methods and tools used to protect the President should also be available to the poorest citizen if he wishes to use them. You can easily understand that those who would oppose this argument probably do not value those two lives equally.