Obama to Take Dictatorial Action to Violate Law-Abiding Citizens’ Right to Buy and Sell Arms

[Previously, at WEJB/NSU:

“Despite Barack Obama’s Claims to the Contrary, He Enthusiastically Supports Ever More ‘Gun Violence’; if He Wanted to Drastically Reduce Gun Violence, Here are Nine Common Sense Gun Safety Practices that He Would Support”; and

“Certain Kinds of Murders Just aren’t being Committed Anymore (or are They?), While New Kinds are.”]
 

By Nicholas Stix
Revised and expanded, Monday, January 4, 2016, 5:45 a.m.

He can't do that. It's illegal and unconstitutional, and one of Obama's few dictatorial power grabs that Republicans are willing to oppose. He would require the assistance of local law enforcement, and many sheriffs will not only refuse to enforce it, as they refused to permit VA agents to illegally confiscate firearms from elderly veterans, but will do so in a very noisy way.

[Postscript, January 4.] Well, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has dared “Obama” to try his stunt in the Lone Star State, and a governor beats a sheriff, any day.

"‘That's especially true for one piece of unfinished business, that's our epidemic of gun violence,’ Obama said in his weekly address.”

If “Obama” were concerned about an “epidemic of gun violence,” he would turn his attention to black and Hispanic gangbangers murdering thousands of people per year, and support practices like “stop-and-frisk.” Instead, he undermines those practices, and celebrates BLM cop-killers as his guests of honor at the White House. Meanwhile, he wants to harass law-abiding whites at gun shows, where there is never any violence, and which have never led to murders.

“He said a bipartisan bill from three years ago requiring background checks for almost everyone had huge support, including among a majority of NRA households. But the Senate blocked it.”

That sounds like a lie to me. Of course, when does the John Doe calling himself “Barack Obama” not lie?

“‘Each time, we're told that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, so we shouldn't do anything,’ he said. ‘We know that we can't stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one?’”

What sort of a leader insists on passing laws, or worse, imposing unconstitutional executive orders for a problem, even though he knows they will have no effect on that problem? It means that either he’s an imbecile, or he’s being dishonest, and is really up to something much different than that which he claims to be doing. If you bet on dishonesty with “Obama,” you’ll never lose.

A basic rule in politics tells us to disregard any claim by a politician, not just “Obama,” who argues that we should submit to major legal and/or administrative changes, for the sake of saving one life. Any major change enacted by a nation’s government will harm people, and not just one. Thus, if someone argues that a major change is worth is, if it saves just one life, then it is a loser of a proposition, because it will kill more people than it saves.

To return to “Obama,” for a man who has devoted his entire career to inciting racist violence, to speak of saving lives is obscene.
 

Obama explores unilateral steps on guns
Kevin Freking, Associated Press
Updated 7:02 pm, Friday, January 1, 2016
San Francisco Chronicle
363 comments

President Obama gestures during a visit to the University of Hartford, in Hartford, Conn., Monday, April 8, 2013. Obama visited the school to highlight gun control legislation and to meet with the families of victims from the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings.

HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama is looking for ways to keep guns out of the hands of "a dangerous few" without depending on Congress to pass a law on the fraught subject of gun control.

He's says he'll meet his attorney general, Loretta Lynch, on Monday to see what executive actions might be possible. Steps to strengthen background checks could come this week.

"The gun lobby is loud and well organized in its defense of effortlessly available guns for anyone," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "The rest of us are going to have to be just as passionate and well organized in our defense of our kids."

He said he gets so many letters from parents, teachers and children about the "epidemic of gun violence" that he can't "sit around and do nothing."

Obama recently directed staff at the White House to look into potential executive actions.

Currently, federally licensed firearms dealers are required to seek background checks on potential firearm purchasers. But advocacy groups say some of the people who sell firearms at gun shows are not federally licensed, increasing the chance of sales to customers prohibited by law from purchasing guns.

A source familiar with the administration's efforts said Obama is expected to take executive action next week that would set a "reasonable threshold" for when sellers have to seek a background check. That person didn't know whether it would be based on the number of guns sold or revenue generated through gun sales.

The source, a member of a gun control advocacy group, was not authorized to discuss details before the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. White House officials won't confirm the timing.

In his efforts to work around a Congress that has often been politically gridlocked, Obama has made aggressive use of executive power, particularly on immigration. It has been an increasingly effective presidential tool. And while legal scholars are divided on whether Obama has accelerated or merely continued a drift of power toward the executive branch, there's little debate that he's paved a path for his successor.

Depending on who succeeds him, many Obama backers could rue the day they cheered his "pen-and-phone" campaign to get past Republican opposition in Congress. The unilateral steps he took to raise environmental standards and ease the threat of deportation for millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally may serve as precedent for moves they won't cheer.

The National Rifle Association opposes expanded background check systems. The organization's Institute for Legislative Action says studies have shown that people sent to state prison because of gun crimes typically get guns through theft, the black market or family and friends.

Also, many purchases by criminals are made from straw purchasers who pass background checks. "No amount of background checks can stop these criminals," says the group's website.

Obama has consistently expressed frustration after mass shootings, saying it shouldn't be so easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm to get his or her hands on a gun.

Going into his final year in office, Obama said his New Year's resolution is to move forward on unfinished business.

"That's especially true for one piece of unfinished business, that's our epidemic of gun violence," Obama said in his weekly address.

He said a bipartisan bill from three years ago requiring background checks for almost everyone had huge support, including among a majority of NRA households. But the Senate blocked it.

"Each time, we're told that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, so we shouldn't do anything," he said. "We know that we can't stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one?"