Obama’s executive order on gun control
As promised (or threatened, depending on your point of view), Obama has issued an executive order to go around Congress on gun control. He starts by listing types of gun violence and numbers of victims (including suicides) and then goes on to harangue Congress for not passing unspecified “commonsense gun safety reforms supported by a majority of the American people.”
Some of his orders involve making the already-existing gun check procedures more efficient; for example, having them function 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which involves hiring more people. This actually seems like the sort of change that would be appropriate for an executive order: enforce existing laws.
It’s several later orders that appear to go beyond existing law that have caused the objections, although to greater or lesser degrees depending on who is doing the writing. For example, Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review thinks it’s not really such a big deal:
Even if we’re generous and presume that every single one of these regulations finds its way permanently into the law, he will nevertheless have done nothing substantial to further “universal background checks”; he will have instituted none of his coveted magazine limits; and he will have banned none of the weapons that he disdains. Further, he will have set no meaningful precedents whatsoever. In other words: Even if he wins this round, he will have done precisely nothing of merit ”” except perhaps to have pleased his base and to have convinced the most ignorant parts of the electorate that he has finally stuck his finger into the NRA’s eye. Were these serious measures, I would be squealing. Instead, I’m amused.
Well, I’m not so very amused as Cooke. I think Cooke fails to appreciate that pleasing Obama’s base and sticking his finger in the NRA’s eye are no small parts of Obama’s goal, and not unimportant to Obama, although Cooke might not think that much of them. What’s more, who said Obama is finished? Did someone take his phone and pen away? If so, I hadn’t noticed. Obama puts his toe in the water, tests things out, and then immerses his foot, and so on.
But it’s also the process in general that Obama wants advanced—that is, his right to do things without Congress. That’s something that Caleb Howe at Red State recognizes. His post explains what each “loophole” or supposed loophole is, and what effect the executive orders are likely to have on them. He agrees with Cooke that the effects are probably rather small. However:
Although the practical effect of the President’s action is relatively minor, it is a message nevertheless. The President is establishing his authority to simply take action curtailing the constitutionally guaranteed right of Americans to own guns, without the legislature, based on his own decisions about what that action should consist of.
This president is always establishing a precedent. He would do much more if he thought he could get away with it.
[ADDENDUM: In Obama’s speech he made a statement that he’s made many times before in different ways:
“We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency,” Obama said. “It doesn’t happen in other advanced countries. It’s not even close.”
It all depends on your definition of “advanced countries.” The statistics to which Obama is referring carefully pick and choose the countries for comparison to the US in order to prove the point. But is Russia, for example, an “advanced country”? You certainly can argue that it’s not a country you’d want to live in, but I can’t see that it’s not advanced. It has a very high murder rate, and is often left out of the list. If you want to look at an article about how these statistics are cherry-picked, take a look at this, complete with several charts. It makes for very interesting reading.
For example:
Why not use the UN’s human development index instead? That would seem to make at least as much sense if we’re devoted to looking at “developed countries.”
So, let’s do that. Here we see that the OECD’s list contains Turkey, Bulgaria, Mexico, and Chile. So, if we’re honest with ourselves, that must mean that other countries with similar human development rankings are also suitable for comparisons to the US.
Well, Turkey and Mexico have HDI numbers at .75. So, let’s include other countries with HDI numbers either similar or higher. That means we should include The Bahamas, Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama, Uruguay, Venezuela, Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Estonia, and Latvia.
You can see where this is going. If we include countries that have HDI numbers similar to ”” or at least as high as ”” OECD members Turkey and Mexico, we find that the picture for the United States murder rate looks very different (correctly using murder rates and not gun-deaths rates…)
And why not include data from individual states? It has always been extremely imprecise and lazy to talk about the “US murder rate.” The US is an immense country with a lot of variety in laws and demographics. (Mexico deserves the same analysis, by the way.) Many states have murder rates that place them on the short list of low-crime places in the world. Why do we conveniently ignore them? The US murder rate is being driven up by a few high-murder states such as Maryland, Louisiana, South Carolina, Delaware, and Tennessee. In the spirit of selective use of data, let’s just leave those states out of it, and look at some of the low-crime ones…
It’s a very interesting article, and I suggest you read the whole thing. There are also some statistics here that specifically involve gun deaths (but include suicides, accidents, and justifiable homicides) rather than all homicides. You’ll note that almost everywhere in Latin America, including a “developed” country such as Uruguay, the gun death rate is high. And in South Africa (a country with a split personality, because it’s both developed and developing) it’s astronomical.
I couldn’t locate a transcript of Obama’s speech, but if he meant to refer to mass murders only, I’ve already written a piece about that.]
Neo, I’m not as worried about this (yet) as you seem to be. Please remember that President Obama has done this before — right after Newtown CT, if memory serves — and, then as well, made all sorts of grand pronouncements, which were viewed with alarm by many, and wound up simply being several different flavors of weak tea. (He boldly announced that several committees would be formed — committees! — to do studies — studies!!… and little of that actually accomplished anything.)
Yes, he’s serving up some reheated leftovers to his base. Those that care enough to understand the issues will know he’s not accomplishing much. He will do wonders for NRA fundraising, though, and also for nationwide gun sales — and he is without doubt driving up Republican attendance at the polls in November.
In other words, from his perspective, he’s getting the worst of both worlds — policies that don’t accomplish much for him, but that energize his opponents.
Keep talking, Mr. President. You’re doing fine. Believe me, we’re listening.
Daniel in Brookline:
My alarm has to do with process rather than content at this point.
Neo: fair enough. I, too, am alarmed at this President’s cheerful willingness to use authority that was never his, to do things that the people never wanted.
What I’m saying is that, on this issue anyway, he’s done this before, with minimal results. Perhaps he’ll follow this up with stronger executive orders — California gun laws extended across the entire nation, say — but I don’t see it. If he wanted to do that, he’d have tried it this time.
(Quite frankly, I don’t understand WHY he hasn’t done it. It feels like his heart isn’t quite in it… or that there’s something he’s afraid of. He continues to give lip service to the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms, which I don’t think for a moment he actually believes. But based on his actions thus far, on the subject of gun control, what I expect is yet more sound and fury, signifying nothing.)
Daniel in Brookline:
He is afraid of the backlash. He feels he has to take baby steps because of it. He knows the bitter clingers are numerous.
I agree with Charles C. W. Cooke on the effect of the proposals and with Neo about Obama’s purpose. I listened carefully to Obama’s speech and thought it would have great appeal with LIVs who don’t like guns. Now, my questions are, 1) Will a lot of the indignation in the media from NRA types (like myself) actually help Obama’s purpose? and 2) Is there a clever response from NRA types that could minimize Obama’s appeal with the LIV gun phobes?
It is a truism because it is true, but if guns are banned or controlled then only criminals will have guns.
People obeying the law are not he problem.
First of all, Obama has NO statutory authority to change the law. The law already defines who must obtain a Federal license to sell firearms.
This is partially about intimidation but primarily about moving toward universal gun registration. As their end goal of confiscation will be greatly enabled when they know who has what and where they live.
Under this executive order, there is NOTHING preventing the DOJ from prosecuting a private individual who has NOT obtained a Federal license and who sells just ONE gun to a friend. On the other hand, this executive ‘order’ clearly allows for that prosecution, purely at the discretion of the DOJ.
Laws now mean whatever the left, at the moment, wants them to mean.
Obama admits that this new diktat would NOT have prevented any of the past 15 mass slayings, then states that, That’s why we’re here today. Not to debate the last mass shooting, but to do something to try to prevent the next one.”
Obama goes on to say,
“Contrary to the claims of what some gun rights proponents have suggested, this hasn’t been the first step in some slippery slope to mass confiscation. Contrary to claims of some presidential candidates, apparently, before this meeting, this is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns.
But ends his travesty by contradicting himself,
“That’s what we’re doing today. And tomorrow, we should do more. And we should do more the day after that.”
The – most – duplicitous – President… ever.
Indeed. Part of the Obama method is to carefully calculate at every different point in time how far to go that won’t cause the Republicans in congress to go to the mattresses.
He’s a proven liar.
In fact, he almost never tells the truth.
Which should be enough for anyone to be wary his honeyed words, no matter how comforting or reasonable they might sound.
“Be wary”? No, that should be “totally mistrust”. The only question is, what’s the endgame?
The answer is more “fundamental transformation.” More division, more acrimony, more breakdown.
No, the only reasonable conclusion is that Obama’s up to no good.
Regarding Obama’s speech, the big story right now is that he cried a few tears while delivering it.
Regarding the homicide by firearm rate in the U.S., it has been noted in a number of places that if we subtract the black-on-black numbers, our rate is quite low. Just sayin’.
What Obama doesn’t realize is that he might be creating a new crop of blue collar Reagan democrats. I recently spent the evening playing cards in deer camp with my brother and several of his friends, all of whom usually vote solidly democrat due to United Steelworker politics. Because of insane policies the dems are pursuing like open borders, bringing in potential Islamist terrorists as refugees and their unstated gun confiscation policies, the general consensus at the card table was that their party has gone crazy. They were all in agreement that if the dems would throw the United Mineworkers (coal miners) overboard to placate the Greenies, they’d do the same to them (iron miners). None of them could stand the Hildabeeste and they were all open to voting for Trump. Anecdotal I know, but could we be seeing the start of a Reagan-like landslide election?
I hope JimBobElrod is onto something: 1) That as Hillary and Bernie push hard left, that masses of blue-collar Dems will start saying that the Dems have gone crazy; and 2) That the many Dem men who disliked Hillary from her start decades ago (like myself) will refuse to vote for her.
Well Trump is no Reagan, but yes, I think we could have a Reagan-like landslide election. People are just fed up.
http://twitchy.com/2016/01/05/whoa-iowahawk-shows-how-obamas-gun-control-strategy-is-actually-genius/
God help us. I’m just glad I don’t own any guns….
carl:
Neither do I. They were all lost, some time ago, in a tragic canoeing accident.
Neo and others are correct to focus on the unlawful process instead of the actual content of king barry’s EO. The left never learns that their anti-liberty agenda, when it comes to the 2nd, promtes the sale of firearms and boosts the membership rolls of organizations that defend the 2nd.
GB is correct that the left has registration as their ultimate goal, and eventual confiscation to follow. That too will fail. There are plenty of pre-1968 firearms in the hands of the people. I have 3 myself.
Carl in atlana,
Did you have a boating accident and lose all your firearms?
😉
People are missing the true intent here, and it will creep up on them over the next 10 years, especially if Clinton wins in November. The new goal is to expand the background check list of those ineligible to purchase guns legally to the point that it includes almost everyone. I predict that by 2026, only 5% or less of the population will be able to pass the background check.
BTW, tens of millions of Americans, including me, are on the ‘enemies’ list. I am a lifetime NRA member, and a member of GOA, JPFO, and Iowa Gun Owners. There is no point in trying to hide
Yes, sadly, when I was a teenager my father took me on a duck and deer hunting trip down the mighty Altamaha River “the Amazon of the South”). As we were floating along at dusk, looking for a good camping site, a wild boar crashed into the dark waters and rammed his barbed 8 inch tusks into the side of our flat-bottomed boat, causing the boat to sink and us to swim for our lives. We lost all our camping equipment, all of my father’s whisky, and worst of all, all of our many,many rifles, shotguns and target-practice pistols. And ammo. Gone forever, all of it.
I later learned to hate and fear all guns, especially those black assault weapons.
Cornhead @ 2:56 PM: It is an old, and venerable, idea that if guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have guns. But there is a flip side to disarming everyone but existing criminals.
The flip side is that if guns are outlawed, every otherwise law-abiding citizen who keeps a firearm is willy-nilly transformed into a criminal.
It is true that people obeying the laws are not the problem. The problem is the laws themselves, and the people who will inevitably enforce them.
Does anyone notice that often, buried deep within these progressive leftist measures toward ever greater statist control, is a positive urge to utterly obliterate any remaining vestige of the Hippocratic Oath? To enlist the physicians in service to the state and to perfect infidelity with their patients? It’s hardly rare, and surely not accidental, is it?
We are all criminals, we are all enemies of the state. Anyone who is aligned with the concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is persona non grata. It comes with the territory if you refuse to conform to the meme of the multi-culti PC ruling class. All you can do is laugh in their collective face and realize they want you, your family, and your friends dead. Once you come to that conclusion you are truly free.
Cornhead
It is a truism because it is true, but if guns are banned or controlled then only criminals will have guns. People obeying the law are not he problem.
The city of Wilmington, Delaware commissioned the CDC to do a public health analysis of gun violence in the city. The results did not follow the expected “guns kill people” narrative. From the NYT: When Gun Violence Felt Like a Disease, a City in Delaware Turned to the C.D.C.
The CDC found that those involved in gun violence were violent people before they turned to guns. Guns merely enabled them to act out their impulses. The study basically concluded not that “guns kill people,” but “violent people kill people.”
betsybounds,
No less a personage than Thomas Jefferson argued that if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns.
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms …. disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – Thomas Jefferson
“people obeying the laws are not the problem. The problem is the laws themselves, and the people who will inevitably enforce them.” betsybounds
Jefferson thought of that point as well;
“Law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so, when it violates the right of an individual.” Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819
“The flip side is that if guns are outlawed, every otherwise law-abiding citizen who keeps a firearm is willy-nilly transformed into a criminal.”
But betsy, that’s the point. How else are they going to disarm America if they haven’t the leverage?
“Does anyone notice that often, buried deep within these progressive leftist measures toward ever greater statist control, is a positive urge to utterly obliterate any remaining vestige of the Hippocratic Oath?” sdferr
Not only have many noticed it but liberal/leftist Robert Reich admitted it and the college crowd applauded…
“Fundamentally transforming the American health care system to be more ‘equal’ means that young healthy people are going to have to pay a lot more.
It means that the very old are not going to get the technology and drugs for the last couple of years of life to keep them going. It’s too expensive. So we’re going to let them die.
It means using the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid… to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs.
But that means less innovation, and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market, which means that extending people’s life spans will stop.” Robert Reich paraphrased
It all depends on your definition of “advanced countries.” The statistics to which Obama is referring carefully pick and choose the countries for comparison to the US in order to prove the point. But is Russia, for example, an “advanced country”?
Gun control advocates point to Europe as our model. But as Neo points out, they are selective regarding which European countries they choose. If you do a correlation between Murder Rate and Gun Ownership Per Capita for the THIRTY NINE countries of Europe for which Wikipedia has data, we find that the correlation coefficient is -.323. Which says the more guns, the fewer murders, for EUROPE. Doesn’t fit the prog narrative, doesn’t it?
There is a fair amount of variation in both gun ownership and murder rate in Europe. For example, the murder rate/100,000 varies between 10 for Russia, 9.7 for Lithuania to 0.3 for Iceland, 0.6 for Switzerland, and 0.7 for Sweden and Slovenia. Guns per 100 inhabitants vary from 0.7 for Lithuania and Romania to 31.6 for Sweden, 45.7 for Switzerland, and 69.7 for Serbia. Serbia, with the highest gun ownership in Europe, has a murder rate of 1.2. Russia, with the highest murder rate in Europe @ 9.0, ranks 25th in gun ownership @ 8.9.
Given the diverse nature and continental expanse of the United States, a better comparison is not with a couple of more homogeneous countries in Western Europe, but with all the countries of Europe.
As I grew up in a town where many of my classmates had parents or grandparents who emigrated from Eastern Europe, I consider it quite apt to include all of Europe when comparing the US to “Europe.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
Gun crimes in the U.S. – tears of outrage.
Americans decapitated by ISIS – ho hum, where’s my golf cart?
Worst C-in-C ever!
The Prog reasoning is simple. It’s so black and white that’s it’s laughable: Old things should be disregarded because upon the analysis of the questioned norm it is found to be offensive, if not – change it.
Even if the gun violence in America did not reach the numbers it has, Progs would still be in favor of eliminating the 2nd Amendment because “it was written in a different time when the country was more rural and far more dangerous.” They will say, “Things have changed” as if that cuts the point of the 2nd Amendment to shreds.
Add in tears of so-called frustration and sadness with wimpering family members in the background and you get a nation that sways towards more government control and an empowered self-righteous Left.
I voted for Obama in ’08. I know frackin’ despise the man and his supporters.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/the-tree-of-liberty-requires-blood/
We got a potential flank attack in progress. Who is flanking whom, well that is still a mystery. Stay tuned to the militia sites and FB. How fast the Hussein Regime will get their CCTV counter propaganda out, will determine who is really pulling the strings here.
I later learned to hate and fear all guns, especially those black assault weapons.
If you also claim to have converted to Islam and or self identify as trans or homosexual, preferably on some social media the Leftist fed agents are watching, it would provide more cover overall. Although that could be over doing it.
“Gun control advocates point to Europe as our model. But as Neo points out, they are selective regarding which European countries they choose.” Gringo
Gun control advocates are even more selective in looking at US gun murder rates and the racial perpetrator. FBI statistics reveal that the higher the population of blacks and Hispanics, the higher the gun murder rate. Wash. DC has the highest black percentage in the US and the most severe gun laws. It’s gun murder rate is 16.5%. Idaho has the lowest black/Hispanic percentage of pop. and one of the most liberal gun laws. It’s gun murder rate is 0.8%…
The US white gun murder rate is right in line with Europe’s. But it is NOT race but culture that is responsible for these statistics. The Asian gun murder rate is lower than the white rate and the reason is the Asian cultural emphasis of ‘family honor’.
These are the facts that the left denies at all costs.
Actually, for Obama it’s personal.
Some dude with a gun killed his “could-have-been-my-son”, Trayvon Martin.
Some white dude.
Some white Hispanic (or whatever) dude.
Doesn’t matter that “could-have-been-my-son” was a serial, pill-popping, petty criminal with a violent streak.
Doesn’t matter that “could-have-been-my-son” was on top of that white Hispanic (or whatever) dude’s skull against the pavement and pounding his head against the pavement in an effort to, to, to (what? Gentle persuasion?)
Doesn’t matter at all.
Unfortunately for “could-have-been-my son”, that white Hispanic dude had a gun. And was able to get it out and use it.
Bad luck for “could-have-been-my-son”.
Didn’t get a chance to keep on pounding that white Hispanic dude’s skull on the pavement.
Poor kid.
And so, Obama is going to make sure none of his other “could-have-been-my-sons” are going to have to suffer what “could-have-been-my-son” suffered.
Yep, he, and Loretta. are going to make darn sure.
Sweet Loretta.
Meislin, well said, and cleverly entertaining as well.
Obama’s directive is literally inviting doctors (and others!) to start submitting names of people who should not be allowed to purchase guns. Once your name is on that list, you have to work to show that it shouldn’t be. Now, how easy do you think it is to get your name off that list once on? That is what he has done, and no one seems to understand that.
Kates and Mauser did a study that showed there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but rather a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.
http://garymauser.net/pdf/KatesMauserHJPP.pdf
Ray, that’s the problem in a totalitarian state, when the livestock think they don’t need the State for protection. They then start refusing to pay the protection fee when murder and suicide decreases.