PRESIDENT TO TAKE "EXECUTIVE ACTION" ON GUN CONTROL PER BIDEN

[Travis15R]

The political pendulum swings back and forth. This ban, if initiated, will pass in time, just like the last ban did. In the end some poor soul that paid $3000 for an AK47 will be suffering extreme buyers remorse.

The last ban lasted 10 years and we lost very little compared to what they want to accomplish this time around. Best case senerio a gun ban lasts 10 yrs again, who wants to wait 10 years to get a gun they want when they can get it now although for a higher price if they want to pay for it.

Relying on the fact that any ban will expire in time and prices will fall to previous levels is very optimistic

 

[rcpaul]

The executive order would have nothing to do with banning of guns it would tell the EPA to treat lead in bullets as a pollutant and regulate it. He would have the Batf interprete nfa to include semi-automatic fire arms with these he could regulate and tax out of existence ammunition and semi-automatic firearms

 

[Moonman]

rcpaul,

Within the EPA legislation, THEY ARE SPECIFICALLY DENIED THE LEAD ROUTE, groups already that and the court tossed it.

 

[squidsix]

Not sure what's up with Florida_Lawdog. I worry that him and some like him are an example of gun owners who don't think any evil is at hand here.
I will never register my guns. I will never confiscate them from anyone in the line of "duty" and I will actively attempt to stop others from the same.

 

[StatesRightist]

Not sure what's up with Florida_Lawdog. I worry that him and some like him are an example of gun owners who don't think any evil is at hand here.
I will never register my guns. I will never confiscate them from anyone in the line of "duty" and I will actively attempt to stop others from the same.

Let's hope many of your brother Servicemen and women feel the same.

You are an honorable man. Thank you for understanding and living your oath, unlike many prominent people we could both name.

 

[rcpaul]

rcpaul,

Within the EPA legislation, THEY ARE SPECIFICALLY DENIED THE LEAD ROUTE, groups already that and the court tossed it.

Thank you I was not aware of that

 

[66Park]

Not sure what's up with Florida_Lawdog. I worry that him and some like him are an example of gun owners who don't think any evil is at hand here.
I will never register my guns.

I just spent quite a while reading the DC vs. Heller Supreme Court decision. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER If you take the time to read that, the court counters pretty much all of the arguments the antis use regarding the 2nd Amendment. It is a BIG win for supporters of the 2nd Amendment (us). The court explained in great detail what the amendment is about and how it applies to today. This is VERY bad stuff if you are anti gun. The DC and Chicago gun bans were struck down as unconstitutional. Then the courts struck down the Illinois ban on concealed carry.

Then the perfect storm came together for the anti gun people with the CT shootings.

In the face of all this, they are going to go for the wildest, strictest laws they think they can get, for instance the bill that was just proposed in Illinois that banned all semi automatic guns, even ones that were designed a hundred years ago, as well as most shotguns and stated that they were to be confiscated from their legal owners. This law, if it had gone through, would have banned and confiscated 80% of the handguns and 50% of the long guns in the state. Similarly oppressive laws are being proposed elsewhere.

I responded yesterday on the forum to a letter someone posted from Dick Durbin saying that the Congress wouldn't do anything to the 2nd Amendment rights of hunters and target shooters. It occurs to me that saying that is a tactic to divide and conquer us. There are many gun owners who only own guns to hunt and perhaps feel that as long as their right to own their guns is not taken away, what's so bad about an "assault weapons ban?" Using the hunters and target shooters language bleeds off some of the opposition. As is clearly illustrated by the attempts in Illinois and elsewhere, what many of these people have in mind is banning and even perhaps confiscating much more than "assault weapons." It is a total, all out assault on the 2nd Amendment.

All gun owners really need to present a united front to these assaults on our rights, or we lose a lot of our strength.

 

[Cordite]

I have 4 hand guns. If they wanted me to register them I would Send the paperwork and tomorrow. The current system of registration at the time of purchase from legitimate gun dealers just doesn't work. The reason is, handguns can be transferred 15 times between private citizens with no paperwork at all. Here in the state of Florida you can do face-to-face hand gun sales with anyone who is a resident of the state.

Maybe they could set up some kind of a title program for handguns similar to that used in motor vehicles.

One problem that the Second Amendment enthusiasts have is the spokesman that are out there representing them. In the last couple of weeks I've heard some real crazies. The fact is that both sides have a personal agenda. That's why they can't arrive at a common sense solution.

That's just my opinion I could be wrong. Best to everyone on the forum.

I posted the following on another thread:

The problem with the logic in your proposal is that you are treating a right the same as a privilege.

Under our Constitution, a right is something not bestowed by government but by our Creator. A right is something every man has and shares, regardless of any form of government.

A privilege is a power created and bestowed by the government. Since you use roads provided by the government, driving is a privilege the government grants to you allowing you to use those roads. And in granting you the privilege, the government may set qualifications you must meet regarding the exercise of your privilege.

With a right, since the government is not the authority bestowing the right, they have little to no power to regulate a right.

Note that there are provisions within the Bill of Rights, that grant some latitude to the government in the area of rights. But those provisions apply only to the right specified. For example, the Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from conducting "unreasonable" searches and seizures. With regard to the Second amendment, there is not only no "reasonableness" language pertaining to the right to keep and bear arms, the language "shall not be infringed" is there to impose serious limitations on any government interference.

The "blurring" of the distinction between rights and privileges is a tactic employed by the gun control crowd. It makes their goal that much easier when they do not have to face the fact that they can do little with a right.

What people need to understand and take to heart is this: as goes the Second Amendment, so goes the Bill of Rights. Any limitation or qualification of the Second Amendment can (and will in the future) be used concerning all other rights.

The current "debate" on gun control is not about guns but about control. And the overwhelming media coverage and push has planted more than a few seeds that guns are the cause. Remember, it is the Bill of Rights we are discussing, not the Bill of Needs.

And for those tempted to move into the "ban assault weapons" camp because their interests in firearms is not in assault weapons, I am reminded of this:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

The approach being used is the incremental reduction and elimination of the Second Amendment. Take a little at a time so people don't notice. Boil the frog slowly.

Finally, any discussion on qualifications for owning a gun begins with the presumption that people are not responsible for their own actions and the government must step in. It is typical "nanny state" thinking, presuming that the government better than the individual knows what is right for him or her. Having been a "cold warrior" for over 20 years, I recognize that philsophy right away - it is called communism.

Not trying to give a lecture here, but a right should not be subject to compromise, particularly when it is guaranteed with the words "shall not be infringed".

None of their past gun control measures have proven to have any correlation to reducing violence. None. Perhaps because criminals tend to ignore gun control laws in addition to other criminal laws.

History shows that every instance of gun registration has been eventually followed by confiscation. Which has been followed by genocide and mass murder.

Hitler killed over 10 million civilians. Stalin over 20 million. Mao close to 30 million. Pol Pot - we may never know the final count. The comon thread being all of their civilian populations were disarmed.

 

[Bat Guano]

Way back when a Greek undertook to write the history of a war. He did it so people would hopefully learn from it and not make the same mistakes again.

Tricky concept, that. Bottom line is that when it comes to human nature you should never say never. When it comes to governments and power junkies, multiply times 10.

Bet you never heard that in school. And now here we are.

 

[moe l.]

Our current administration is undeterred by such things as LAWS or THE CONSTITUTION. I wait anxiously to see what they propose and what they decide to do - whether it is lawful or not. However, I suggest they lead by example and surrender every gun carried by their personal body guards and withdraw the armed guards that accompany their children at their school.

 

[Damocles]

I'm sure you've all seen the video from 95 of Eric Holder equating gun ownership with people who smoke, talking about brainwashing the public, etc...
I spent 5 years of my life on active duty to defend my rights AGAINST people like this, now they all have nice desks at the highest levels of government.

The DOJ knowingly allowed illegal weapon movements south of the border that have gotten people killed and nobody holds them to account. All in an effort to sway public opinion for more gun control. And yet those same people want us to all disarm. Nope, sorry.

 

[Cordite]

Great commentary by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):

Presidential Gun Ban: Executive Power or Unconstitutional Power Grab?

Over the last few years there has been a growing concern about the President's questionable expansion of executive powers. As a nation of laws, public officials are sworn to uphold the law . . . even laws you may not like. The way to deal with laws you do not like is to get Congress or whatever body passed it to change it. Real simple.

President Obama has, by executive order, circumvented national immigration law by ordering a halt to deportations of certain unlawful aliens, without getting the law changed. In July of 2012, President Obama changed long standing welfare policy to allow states to change mandated work requirements. Earlier he ordered the DOJ not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. None of these orders were submitted to Congress for review, which the Government Accountability Office concluded he should have done in part. I have co-sponsored bills to reverse these unconstitutional power grabs and will continue to fight them.

The President, touted by some as knowledgeable about our Constitution, acts as if he never heard of it sometimes. Now, the President and Vice-President are talking about enacting gun bans by executive order.

"The president is going go act," Biden is quoted as saying. "There are executive orders, executive action that can be taken. We haven't decided what that is yet, but we're compiling it all."

For the moment put aside the fact that the Second Amendment protects the right of each person to own and posses firearms and the ammunition that goes with it. Our Supreme Court resolved that issue in Heller. Obviously neither the President nor Congress can enact laws that violate the Second Amendment, anymore than they can enact laws that violate the First Amendment or the Fifth Amendment.

Let's focus on the supposed authority of the President to simply enact laws by the stroke of his pen. Article I Section I of the Constitution vests all legislative powers in Congress. All. None are given to the President or the Courts. All government acts need to be evaluated on whether they are consistent with our Constitution.

The executive branch has the Constitutional responsibility to execute the laws passed by Congress. It is well accepted that an executive order is not legislation nor can it be. An executive order is a directive that implements laws passed by Congress. The Constitution provides that the president "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Article II, Section 3, Clause 5. Thus, executive orders can only be used to carry out the will of Congress. If we in Congress have not established the policy or authorization by law, the President can't do it unilaterally.

In order for the President to enact a gun ban by executive order, he would have to have such power given to him by Congress (we already established that the Constitution does not give him that power). Any unilateral action by the President must rely on either a constitutional authority or a statutory power from Congress. What laws exist for the President to enact gun bans by executive order? The Attorney General is authorized under the Gun Control Act (GCA) to regulate the import of firearms if it is "generally suitable" for or readily adaptable to sporting purpose. Thus, the Attorney General could use a "sporting purposes test" by which he can determine the types of firearms that can be imported into the United States. But this law does not authorize a gun ban or affect domestic manufacture and sales. So it provides no Congressional basis for Mr. Biden or the President to create a gun ban.

President Obama may point out that President Clinton issued an executive order (No. 12938) in 1994 where some Chinese firearms and ammunition were restricted from import. If that occurred, it would have been a serious overreach of the application of the authority set forth in that Executive Order, which President Clinton said at the time was being implemented under the International Economic Powers Act, the National Emergencies Act, and the Arms Export Control Act. As stated in the Order itself, "the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (''weapons of mass destruction'') and of the means of delivering such weapons, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat." President Clinton Executive Order 12938 (1994). How that justification, based on large scale weapons of mass destruction, could be interpreted to include Chinese hand guns is unclear and problematic. Indeed, any fair reading of those laws would conclude they could not support a domestic gun ban.

The bottom line is that there is no Congressional authority enacted that would allow the President to take unilateral action to make it unlawful for individuals to transfer or possess a rifle, handgun or other gun or a large capacity ammunition feeding device. Nor is there any Constitutional power under Article II (the power of being the "Commander in Chief") that allows this. If the President wants a gun ban or ammunition ban he has to first revise the Second Amendment, which is not easy, but possible. I would, of course, oppose that, as would most Americans. But that is at least a lawful and Constitutional means to achieve this.

Nor can the President do something Congress has prohibited. Thus, the President cannot reallocate ATF money and direct it to make a centralized database of federal firearms purchases because we prohibited that. Last year the House passed a continuing funding resolution (I would rather vote on budgets but the Senate refuses to pass a budget resolution and has not done so since April 2009), that became Public Law 112–55 (Nov. 18, 2011), that expressly prohibits the President from using any money "to disclose part or all of the contents of the Firearms Trace System database maintained by the National Trace Center of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or any information required to be kept by licensees" except for criminal investigations. In other words, the President is expressly prohibited from making a list of gun owners for purposes of then rounding up guns. This resolution contains other restrictions as well limiting the President's budget control over firearms policy.

Another law, the 2007 National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) Improvement Amendment Act, requires each federal agency to transfer records to the Attorney General if a record shows that someone is a prohibited firearm possessor under federal law. It is within the President's power to make sure his agencies are complying with that law and submitting records to the AG. But that is it. No more was authorized by Congress.

I, and many Americans, remain troubled by what we see are unconstitutional power grabs by the President. We have a Constitution and it requires that we follow it. Indeed, every public officer swears to do so. The Constitution sets our policy for the long term, and emotions of the day have to be subsumed to those principles. All of us share the grief of the criminal use of guns. We need to focus on the mentally ill who commit these crimes. We should not abandon our cultural and legal values, in place for over 200 years and created for good reason, because of a few mentally ill people. We need to remain vigilant and not let the President create bogus executive orders that have no Constitutional authority and no statutory authority.

Presidential Gun Ban: Executive Power or Unconstitutional Power Grab?

 

[owenwd54]

Remember all who try to take our rights away

Remember all who try to take our rights away Election time for some is coming soon . If they are not from your state remember that your money spends in their states to . We can trow our money in the pockets of who ever runs against them . We should make it our life's to goal to defeat
Barbra Frankenstein and MC Car-they.

REMEBER.

 

[StatesRightist]

Gosar for President...

 

[doge]

The only good news is many crooks and mentally challenged can not afford the prices ofsemi's and ammo. The bad news it is going to get worse and prices will remain high and possilbly 1776 starting all over again. Obama will write executive orders. He does not care about the constitution (he's proven that already) or what is right. Remember he is a pathological narcissist. The only protection against him is for the house to close the check book. The NRA is already banging on the house members and I as well. Law suits may slow the orders a little but, all of us need to spread the word to talk to your rep. and stop funding period.

 

[10ring]

In case it is of interest,

President Clinton's administration perceived executive orders as a legitimate means to advance its own agenda. I can dig up a bunch of cites for this assertion if anyone wants them. President Clinton himself once stated:

"Congress has a choice to make in writing this chapter of our history. It can choose partisanship, or it can choose progress. Congress must decide. . . . I have a continuing obligation to act, to use the authority of the presidency and the persuasive power of the podium to advance America's interest at home and abroad."
Remarks on Medicare and the Legislative Agenda and an Exchange With Reporters, 34 WEEKLY COMP. PRES. DOC. 1329 (July 6, 1998)

The Clinton administration repeatedly used the executive order as a tool to circumvent what it felt was an "intransigent" Congress and to implement policy. When the Children's Environmental Protection Act stalled in the Senate, Clinton incorporated provisions from the legislation into an executive order that he issued on Earth Day in 1997.

When Congress refused to pass legislation prohibiting employers from employing permanent replacements for striking workers, Clinton issued an order implementing this policy.

Executive Orders have the effect of law when published in the Federal Register. President Clinton added 7371 pages to the Federal Register in the first three weeks of 2001 in order to "enact" as much law as possible before Bush took office. I am not saying everything was in the form of an executive order, but much of it was. Only one of Clinton's orders was ever overturned by the courts.

I would submit that Obama shares Clinton's view on the value of executive orders to circumvent an uncooperative congress and as Obama himself has said, he will have a lot more "flexibility" now that he is in his last term. In general, Presidents seem to more and more think of themselves as Kings. It would be a blatant misuse of power for this to happen, but nothing new. I don't think he would hesitate for an instant to use such a method to get the gun control he wants in the face of of a reluctant Congress.

If you are interested in reading more about this, have access to a law library or a lawyer that will provide you with a copy, and are up for a slightly technical read, you might like to read this:

PRESIDENT OR KING? THE USE AND ABUSE OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS IN MODERN-DAY AMERICA
Tara L. Branuma
2002 Journal of Legislation (28 J. Legis. 1)

 

[Moonman]

Clinton also has the DISHONOR of actually being IMPEACHED,

he was not convicted by the Senate, but should have been.

I did NOT HAVE SEX with that woman.

Thank God for DNA.

Let's see, Oh, But I Didn't Inhale.

IMPERIAL PRESIDENCIES are not new.

Power corrupts.