Here Comes Obama’s Executive Action on Guns
Going around congress. Again.
Now that the holidays are over it’s back to business as usual. In Obama’s case that means pushing a pet issue with no authorization from congress.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Obama Ready to Act Alone on Gun Control
President Barack Obama, who has bypassed a reluctant Congress on issues ranging from immigration to climate change, is preparing to take executive action on gun control, including expanding background checks on buyers.
But even as he gets set to act, Mr. Obama has only limited levers he can pull without Congress, and any unilateral action will face hurdles similar to those it has encountered during earlier attempts to tighten access to guns.
The president plans to meet Monday with Attorney General Loretta Lynch before moving ahead with several gun-related executive actions that could also increase the number of accused domestic abusers barred from purchasing firearms.
Current federal law prohibits people convicted of domestic violence against a spouse, ex-spouse or cohabiting partner from purchasing a gun. But the law doesn’t extend to violence against current or former dating partners, convicted stalkers, or those with temporary restraining orders.
Mr. Obama’s past efforts haven’t always yielded the intended result. Executive actions—or even the specter of executive actions—often have put more firearms in circulation, because gun sales climb amid fears the administration will find a way to limit them.
CNN covered this a few days ago:
One gun dealer in Virginia recently made a very good point about this.
KRNV News reports:
Firearm dealer questions Obama’s planned executive order on guns
The president’s order is expected to – in part – expand background checks to help close the so-called gun show loophole. By federal law, licensed gun dealers must do background checks. But a private person selling a gun does not. And advocates say gun shows increase the likelihood of these private sales.
“It’s not necessarily a gun show loophole, maybe it’s a loophole in gun transactions all together. If you want to call that a loophole… I would call it a right to sell your own personal property,” said Jerry Cochran, one of Virginia’s largest gun dealers.
In 35 years, Cochran says he has never sold a gun without a background check. But he does not feel expanding background checks in this way would help stop gun violence or prevent shootings like those in Sandy Hook, San Bernardino and Charleston.
“It looks like we have some unstable individuals who have taken action. It’s the slice of white-bread effect. You take a slice. You take a slice. You take a slice. And eventually you have the whole loaf, you have everything,” said Cochran.
In a statement, the National Rifle Association said the president is doing what he always does when he doesn’t get his way; he uses executive action to defy the will of the people.
Remember when the media criticized George W. Bush for going it alone?
They don’t.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Flout him. Like we did in the 1770s. This is lawless, he’s lawless. The most brazenly, obscenely lawless president ever. Of course the GOP will do nothing. Ersatz conservative Paul Ryan is too busy taking interviews with the NY Times about his astonishing brilliance and the rest are constantly changing their underwear over Donald Trump.
…and the rest are constantly changing their underwear over Donald Trump.
????
???? should be 😀
And yet, Barracula has to go around congress.
So what you said makes no sense.
I went to a legal cle program on the Second Amendment in December that turned out to be a propaganda exercise for Everytown for Gun Control. The nonsense the lawyers in the audience were supposed to simply absorb as gospel was very alarming. One of the co-sponsors was the American Constitution Society, which is pushing for a new constitution by 2020 without changing the existing language, just the interpretations. I shudder with what nonsense is being pushed by law schools now on students so that they will see the law as an affirmative toll for social engineering.
All these XOs are part and parcel of the insistence that the Second Amendment has no meaning apart from an alarmed militia. Apparently only the progs are allowed to reinterpret phraseology.
Yes, alarming. One way to identify it is “hermeneutics” — as the Left sees it, the exalted entitlement to endlessly and righteously interpret until all history and accepted social truth matches their interests. It’s what Leftists learn from the time they’re children — all is mutable, relative, subjective and any traditional declared truth or canonical interpretation of history disagreeable to their purposes must surely be the product of a warped hierarchy waiting to be overthrown by the enlightened generation.
It doesn’t matter what the 2nd Amendment says, with what undisputed modern clarity, it doesn’t conform to their narrative and therefore it must be reinterpreted, and all social pressures and manipulations of the Left will be used to institutionalize that reinterpretation. And they will not stop until it is done. That’s the most important thing to understand (which not enough conservatives do): they will not stop. It doesn’t matter how many guns are sold, how many people oppose gun control, etc. — the Left are experts at social change in the face of opposition, and they know it.
This is why Codevilla wrote in his great essay that the Left must not simply be defeated in any momentous single event or even in a continuous chain of events — it must be completely demoralized. Conservatives, or Republicans, simply do not get this. They do not understand remorseless war.
The problem is that human nature is not so malleable. If people think the measures aren’t fair, they’ll ignore the measures. I mean, it’s not as if the Department of Justice has a good recent history of cracking down on gun crimes! Given that, rolling the dice and carrying on is a remarkably rational gamble.
” . . . the Left must not simply be defeated in any momentous single event or even in a continuous chain of events — it must be completely demoralized. . .”
Sounds like the same Rx for decimating ISIS.
Scary times.
Moh lon lah vay, muth er fuh ker.
And gun sales go through the roof once again.
And every dollar spent is an indisputable vote FOR gun rights, which are civil rights.
This lame duck POTUS wants sitting duck citizens to lecture to. Ideologues like to point their finger a soft targets.
~~~
I just came from my hairdresser. I found out that her father had given her gun safety classes and range practice for Christmas. She also recently applied for a concealed carry permit. She is 24 years old. This is empowering for women. We do not want to depend on some professor’s political ideology to save us someday.
Haley had asked me what I was doing this weekend. I told her: after my hair cut I am going to an 8hr NRA pistol class today.
Why would the PO[TU]S advertise his actions if he thought he could just do it? Is he testing the water so he can plan to disarm (so to speak) the resistance or perhaps rebellion? Or, is this a distraction because something else is up?
Good point. He’s made a number of shots across the bow. What you say may be true.
My take is that he enjoys taunting the GOP with its impotence. He knows the GOP will do nothing to stop him, and I expect it gives him a little thrill every time he reminds them, and us, of it. He also enjoys the in-your-face insult to conservatives and gun owners.
I cannot remember a so-called “lame duck” president so brazen over his use of end-game power, and also so successful at it; nor can I remember a Congressional majority so stricken in the face of this power.
Remarkable what people will do when they don’t fear consequences.
Barky KNOWS he has nothing to lose.
On the contrary, it’s his own impotence in this matter that makes him speak in such vague terms. He’s telling his supporters that he’s on their side, that he will do whatever he can, and then he will announce a few irrelevant measures that will affect almost nobody, because that’s all he can do.
As I’ve noted here many times, this is boob-bait for Collectivist boobs. I won’t happen, and anyone with sense knows it.
OTOH, it is ALSO a giant “squirrel!” for conservatives, intended to distract from things like THIS…
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/01/01/massive-criminal-justice-reform-coalition-seeks-to-triple-its-number-of-target-states-n2098990
This is MUCH more threatening, and it has some conservative backers.
Abortion rites under the quasi-religious pro-choice doctrine and their progress to clinical cannibalism by Planned Parenthood et al are a human rights loophole.
Gun control that privileges government-approved agents, terrorists and “rebels”, drug cartels, and criminals is a loophole.
This not about preserving human life. This is about depriving moral people of choice and denying a natural right to self-defense.
Yes. But most accurately, this is about fascism: it’s nearly impossible to subjugate an armed populace.
During the Clinton years, ATF regulations were changed in an attempt to eliminate so-called “kitchen table” dealers. These were people who were not stocking dealers and didn’t make their primary living selling firearms. Now the Obama administration and the left is whining because the same people they drove out of the licensing scheme are still selling firearms privately, as allowed by the law. And, they’re trying to claim the system they wanted and signed into law is somehow the fault of the NRA and republicans.
It’s too bad there are no real journalists left in this country willing to point out the left destroys everything they touch.
How are the Federales going to prove I did more than 49 private transactions in one year?
I’d love for the “Kitchen Table Dealers” to come back; it would be an upgrade from my semi-useful “Curio & Relic” license. Dealers don’t have to accept a C&R, I’m forced to ship handguns by common carrier at their most expensive rates, and I could buy and sell any firearms not covered by the 1934 NFA.
Prediction.
The Whig [formerly Republican] Party will go along with anything he orders with no resistance other than whining in fundraising letters where they will promise that if we give them a veto-proof majority in both Houses, and the Presidency [unless it is Cruz or Trump] that they will consider a resolution of disapproval of the actions during the second half of the President’s second term.
The Whigs [nee Republicans] have betrayed their voters on every issue until they have about run out of issues to betray us on. This is about all they have left, so it is next up.
“…consider a resolution of disapproval…”
I don’t know, that might be a bit too strong for the GOPe.
That is a lot of paranoid nonsense. There’s nothing of any significance that he can order. Of course anything he does order will be something the Republicans can’t do anything about, without a veto-proof majority. That is how it works. That is how it has always worked. A congress that opposes the president can refuse to enact new laws, but it can’t repeal existing laws, or take away authority from the president. But nobody has yet come up with any suggestions of significant orders the president could give, that are consistent with existing law.
It is not necessary for his orders to be consistent with the law, merely for someone to follow them to ruin a large number of lives.
We seem to be spending quite a bit of time wondering what he can legally do; that is a question the courts will answer 5-10 years from now.
Our more immediate concern is what can he practically do until, or unless, the courts stop him at some time in the future. Just because a raid is found unlawful doesn’t make the innocents who got killed in it any less dead.
He isn’t going to make any orders that are beyond his legal authority, because nobody will obey them.
Did my part today. Walked out of the local gun shop with a Diamondback DB15 (an AR-15 clone) and a Ruger GP100 in 357 cal. Tuesday I pick up my Ruger single action 41 mag. I have 4 old boxes of original Super Vels in 41 mag. If you get hit in the body any where between the neck and crotch with those Super Vels there is less than a 10% chance of survival. So not to worry about the single action. Besides the DB15 is in the corner with taped back to back mags. If you can’t get the home invader in 61 shots you deserve the wrecked house and the nasty take down you’re going to get from somebody you almost literally scared to death.
I look at the whole exercise as a patriotic gesture. I just invested a couple of grand with ammo and accessories in the Constitution. You know that thing Obama supposedly taught about at the University of Chicago and didn’t remember a damn thing about it.
These are only notes on paper- they are not laws nor legally enforceable.
No one can be forced in any way to abide by the dictates of any executive order.
I don’t think potus even expects these to have any effect- he’s just appeasing his supporters so he an get them off his back a bit.
Potus has been a tool of a system set on dismantling of the Dream of America but i’m starting to perceive a sense of exhausted detachment in him, like a former true ideologue who has utterly lost all faith and interest in his once-obsessive “cause”.
Just my two-cents.
*2-term limits on ALL federal and state posts. Kill political careerism and end the “political class”.
I have the equipment and tools necessary in my two-bit retired guy work shop to make revolvers, shotguns, and rifles. Give me some study time and I’ll figure out how to make semi-autos as well.
I’d prefer to just stick with making guitars, diddley bows, dulcimers, and lap steels, but this guy is an idiot.
Much ado about nothing. Yeah, he’s going to take executive action, and go around Congress, and blah blah blah, but what’s he actually going to do? Nobody seems to have any idea. There doesn’t seem to be anything he can do, except put a definition on “dealer”, which frankly I’d be happy to see him do. The number everyone is talking about is 50 sales a year, and I have no problem at all with that. It will mean that anyone who sticks to 49 sales a year is guaranteed safe, and the ATF thugs will no longer be able to threaten to treat him as a dealer. But the main thing is that such a move would affect almost nobody. Not a single person would lose a single gun, or find it any more difficult to buy one. So who cares? If that’s all he’s going to do, let him knock himself out.
Sure, he wants to do more, but every time he asks the lawyers the answer is the same, “you can’t”.
Recently I have read rumors/claims/hysteria about Obama banning people on the terror watch list/no fly list from purchasing firearms. My take is that Obama cannot add new classes of people to the existing list of those banned by Congress from possessing firearms. What is your thought on that? Just more red meat for the progressive faithful that will–sorrowfully, of course–be dropped because of an obstructionist Congress (/sarc)?
Yes, exactly.
And what makes you think this person will be constrained by the boundaries of the law? He hasn’t seen fit to stay inside their bounds so far.
He’s constrained by the law because if he orders any regulations that exceed his authority nobody will have to obey them. There won’t be anything to charge people with.
Little steps, that’s the Progressive way
If only the Newtown, CT shooter’s mom had been required to order a federal background check on her son before he murdered her and took her AR-15, this tragedy never would have happened…
And sure enough, his proposals are out and they’re all well within his authority, because they’re extremely minor. So minor that almost nobody will be affected.