Officer.com Editor's Blog: Obama's Executive Action on Gun Control
The Internet was lit up today with all sorts of posts and panic about the President’s pending Executive Action in favor of more gun control. The anti-gun-control crowd (those being pro-gun folks) used the pending executive action announcement as a fund raiser the likes of which I haven’t previously seen. To read some of those emails, President Obama was going to prohibit the private ownership of firearms and send out federal troops to begin confiscation. Oh, no! It was going to be the beginning of the next revolution!!! At least… that’s what they wanted you to believe so they could ask you to send in some more money to support their pro-gun efforts. I’m not being unfairly critical. The gun-control crowd has been just as silly. Oh, no!! The President says anyone can buy a gun easier than they can buy an iPad! Quick! Let’s ban iPads!! Oh, wait… no… um… let’s recreate a bunch of laws that already exist so criminals can ignore twice as much as they commit their crimes!
I did my best to keep a level head, shaking my head at some of the silliness as I sipped my morning coffee and waiting to see what the President’s “action” would really consist of. Now that he’s been on television and people have heard what he has to say, the panic seems to have abated somewhat. In this environment I went online and printed out a copy of the “FACT SHEET: New Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Our Communities Safer” document. It’s available on the White House website. With that 13 pages of printed out document in hand I got a cup of coffee (decaf because it’s after lunch) and sat down to read through it to see if there’s actually anything of other than political value in it. I am quite delighted to say… there’s not.
Bear in mind as you read the rest of this I am quite pro-gun. I am a life member of the National Rifle Association. I’ve been a firearms instructor certified by the NRA and the State of Maryland since 1994 – so a little more than twenty years. I’ve been a police officer for over 30 years which equates to more than 60% of my life. Quite honestly, if the government ordered me to surrender my guns, they’d have to send out some folks to take them by force because, as an American citizen, I enjoy the reality that GOD granted me my rights and our forefathers were smart enough to document / recognize them in the Bill of Rights. No man can take my rights from me. That said…
The document starts out with two full paragraphs listing out all the heinous crime and violence that has been committed and links virtually all of that crime to guns. In spite of the sensationalistic presentation of “facts,” the current administration can’t escape the FACT that gun related deaths have gone down year by year over the past decade. As gun ownership climbs at increasingly accelerated rates (thanks to the government’s on-going rhetoric about gun control), gun deaths continue to drop. That small tidbit isn’t included in this document. The first paragraph implies that crimes such as assault and robbery wouldn’t occur if there were no guns or if criminals didn’t have guns. Thinking back on my law enforcement career I’d guesstimate that the crimes of assault and robbery, committed with guns, that I responded to amounted to less than ten percent of those calls overall. A great many people are robbed without a weapon at all, or by a criminal armed with a knife, bat, fake gun or other device.
The first paragraph cites how hundreds of police officers have been shot to death protecting our communities. I can’t help but think that the violence and disrespectful attitude toward law enforcement officers has increased in the past seven years, specifically due to the anti-police rhetoric put forth by this administration and its mainstream media puppets. Perhaps, if President Obama would spend an hour each week talking about the good works and sacrifice that law enforcement is responsible for, people wouldn’t be quite so eager to do us harm.
The first paragraph ends with a statement that “the vast majority of Americans – including the vast majority of gun owners – believe we must take sensible steps to address these horrible tragedies.” Why, yes… yes we do. Where the anti-gun and the pro-gun crowd disagree is on what is a “sensible step.” You see, I don’t think any further restriction of my RIGHT is sensible or acceptable. I think that actually enforcing the existing laws and punishing the criminals who commit crimes is a sensible step. I think encouraging ALL citizens to work and cooperate with the police is a sensible step. I think that arresting and criminally charging those who “protest” (riot) against police action is a sensible step. I think reinstituting the death penalty for those convicted of MURDER is a sensible step. It would certainly hurt the repeat offender rate.
Step One (cited on the document): Keep guns out of the wrong hands through background checks.
This is awesome. I agree. Every criminal who goes into a gun shop to buy a gun and lies on the documents s/he’s required to fill out, should be arrested, charged and prosecuted under existing law. Every gun dealer in the country is already required to make sure the paperwork is filled out completely. If the prohibited criminal ATTEMPTS to buy a gun, s/he’s broken the law. Why isn’t that enforced? Instead, President Obama wants to make me get a background check on my son if I want to sell him a gun (or give him a gun, or otherwise transfer a gun). Part of accomplishing this goal of background checks is the addition of 230 additional FBI employees that we, the tax payers, will have to support. Allegedly, that’s so background checks can be performed 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. I don’t know of a single gun dealer that’s open at two in the morning, but okay. If you see it as necessary. (I don’t.)
Step 2: Make our communities safer from gun violence.
This is apparently going to be accomplished by adding 200 new ATF agents to the 2017 budget. Let’s keep in mind: That’s a SUGGESTION. The President’s 2017 budget, which will launch in October 2016, will have to be approved by the House and Senate first and will certainly have an impact on those things… what are they… oh, yeah – the Presidential election. I’m not sure how much good it will do the Democrat candidate for President Obama to be increasing the government debt as he goes out the door… but it’s his choice and I’m not a politician.
Now this step also includes the first mention of something that really bothers me: Bullet point 5 in Step 2 says that the ATF is finalizing a RULE to ensure that dealers… Hmm. The ATF is making or finalizing a RULE. The ATF can make rules all day, but people are required to obey LAWS. When the government, or any agency thereof, makes RULES and then attempts to restrict how any citizen acts, does business or exercises their rights based on that RULE, then the rule is automatically unconstitutional. Further, any agent who tries to enforce such RULE – if the rule violates anyone’s civil rights (that’s all those things enumerated in the Bill of Rights) – is guilty of a civil rights VIOLATION and should be subject to all of the criminal and civil penalties possible.
Step 3: Increase mental health treatment and reporting to the background check system.
Here we have a problem, folks. You see, the background check system verifies whether or not a person has a CRIMINAL history. If we want to include HEALTH background then we need to do a few things:
First, understand that in doing so we’re giving up EVERY bit of health privacy we have. No more doctor/patient confidentiality. No more HIPPA. No more… anything that keeps YOUR health information out of the government’s hands.
Second, there’s a statement in here that “the Social Security Administration has indicated it will begin the rulemaking process to include information in the background check system…” Once again we see where a government entity plans to make a RULE that allows something that might NOT be allowed by law. What the SSA wants to do is start reporting to the criminal background check system people who, based on social security records, are not mentally healthy enough to own a firearm. Specifically it mentions “beneficiaries” and, last I checked, those are people who are survivors of the death of someone else. So, effectively, the SSA wants to bypass laws protecting health information so that it can report to the FBI those who cannot inherit firearms, thereby allowing or empowering the FBI to go and seize weapons – someone’s inherited property – without due process. Now, before you get all upset: Yes, I understand that some people shouldn’t own a gun because they are mentally imbalanced. That said, I DON’T believe that ANY law enforcement official should be able to, without due process, seize anyone’s personal property. We have to find another way OR GET CONGRESS INVOLVED IN AN APPROPRIATE LAW CREATION.
Third, there’s a note that “The Department of Health and Human Services is finalizing a rule to remove unnecessary legal barriers…” They’re not even hiding it in this one. The DHHS is actually pursuing a method of circumventing the law. Read it again. Tell me if you see any other meaning.
Step 4: Shape the future of gun safety technology.
I get a lot of flack for my outlook on this one, but I’m not against “smart gun” technology. I AM against it being mandated and I AM against my tax dollars being used to fund it. This entire step says, pretty much, that the President would like to see smart gun technology investigated, researched and leveraged as much as possible to improve gun safety. I’m all for that. That said, reality is that guns are mechanical; not electronic. If you’re going to build ANY electronic technology into a weapon, then make sure that the weapon still fully functions even when the battery dies or the electronics get wet. Make the default position for electronic systems failure that the mechanical weapon will still function. THAT is a smart technology no one has pursued.
Shooters… those who actually own and enjoy guns and shoot them regularly, know that guns can malfunction all on their own without having a bunch of bells and whistles added on. The more we DO add into them the more there is to go wrong. What can go wrong will go wrong (eventually). Since most of us don’t need a gun to function until our life is on the line, if it fails at the wrong time, we’ll likely never need it again. Keeping that in mind, functional ACCEPTABLE “smart gun” technology is a long way off in the distant future.
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That’s the President’s “Executive Action” in a nutshell. The only things I see that really worry me are the bits about “rule making.” Nothing in the Constitution gives the government the power to make rules that restrict our rights as citizens. I am most especially concerned that in a document such as this there is a free admission that a government entity is exploring making a rule for the express purpose of circumventing a law. THAT should have people sitting up and taking notice. THAT should be actionable if the DHHS ever gets frisky with that “rule” and starts ignoring the LAW that they have to abide by.
In short, my friends, this is a feel good measure, doubtlessly calculated to appeal to the President’s voter base. In other words, if you already liked him, this made you like him more. If you didn’t / don’t like him, this shouldn’t matter. Just keep paying attention, abide by the law and enjoy being an American.
Stay safe!
Lt. Frank Borelli (ret), Editorial Director | Editorial Director
Lt. Frank Borelli is the Editorial Director for the Officer Media Group. Frank brings 20+ years of writing and editing experience in addition to 40 years of law enforcement operations, administration and training experience to the team.
Frank has had numerous books published which are available on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and other major retail outlets.
If you have any comments or questions, you can contact him via email at [email protected].