After a mass shooting incident in an elementary school in Newtown, CT on December 14, 2012, President Obama signed 23 Executive Orders that in his mind would do something to reduce gun violence. They are reprinted below as issued and reported by multiple media outlets.
But first a comment. I think some of us (Gun Rights supporters) acted like Liberals by condemning the Executive Orders without reading them. There are some acceptable ideas here and one that ended up supporting 2nd Amendment proponents.
To verify I didn’t change any of the verbiage in Obama’s Executive Orders, do a search for “Obama’s 23 Executive Actions on Gun Violence”. Every time I add a link to the orders, it seems like it goes inactive.
My comments follow each order.
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
Comment: Shouldn’t Federal agencies be doing this anyway? The more information in the system, the better it will work.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
Comment: Previous healthcare legislation affects the ability to enter medical related data, specifically mental health data, into the National Instant Check System (NICS). The concern is it could suspend 2nd Amendment rights without due process.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
Comment: Anything that gets more disqualifying information into the NICS has to be a good thing. Some States have submitted very little data to NICS.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
Comment: Not sure what people considered dangerous are not already prohibited from owning firearms. Maybe they consider all combat veterans dangerous?
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
Comment: I could see the merit in running a person’s name through the NICS system before returning a seized firearm, but not a full-blown background check which could take months.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
Comment: Idiotic. It’s no different than doing a NICS check for a gun they sell from their inventory.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
Comment: The NRA has been doing this since 1988 with the Eddie Eagle Gun Safety Program. The National Shooting Sports Foundation also has many gun safety programs. No tax dollars involved.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
Comment: Any gun lock or gun safe can be defeated with enough time and the right tools. If the CPSC gets involved, “impenetrable”gun locks will end up costing more than the gun it is protecting. Additionally, the Newtown School shooter killed his mother with a baseball bat, then took his time breaking into her gun safe. Should the bat have been in the gun safe?
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
Comment: This isn’t already being done? You have to tell the FBI to trace guns involved in crimes? In actually, tracing guns rarely solves crimes. Criminals don’t buy their guns at gun stores.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
Comment: Not sure how having a list of how many firearms were lost or stolen will help law enforcement. A parallel study to this one by the ATF determined where guns used in crimes come from. This one bit Liberals in the rear end. The completed report showed that contrary to theirl claims, most guns used in crimes originated in the State the crime was committed in. Liberals have always claimed crime guns found in tough gun law States are smuggled in from lax gun law States. See: Debunking Liberal Gun Facts
11. Nominate an ATF director.
Comment: Good idea as long as it is not somebody who has dedicated his or her life to confiscating every gun in the country.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
Comment: Pretty sure every jurisdiction that can afford this training is already doing it. But more would help. Would proper training include how to shoot back at active shooters? Many schools are going in that direction.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
Comment: Good idea. Prosecutions for gun crimes dropped 33% during Obama’s administration. Prosecutions for illegally selling a firearm or using one in a crime dropped from 11,067 in 2004 to 8,078 in 2014. Obama blamed this on Congress cutting funding for ATF. This implies that if they can’t enforce the laws already on the books, new laws won’t be enforced either.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
Comment: Another study that bit Liberals in the butt. One of the findings of this study is that individuals use firearms between 500,000 and 1,500,000 time EACH YEAR in self-defense situations. In many, just displaying a firearm prevented a crime. Liberals claim this rarely happens.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
Comment: I guess this refers to Smart Gun technology. And a report on it will help how? Smart guns will only be successful if they are accepted by the police and the military who have already rejected them.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
Comment: Still trying to build the case that gun violence is a medical problem and can be treated by doctors like a disease. What about knife violence and blunt object violence? More people are killed each year by blunt objects than rifles. The main concern here is it could suspend 2nd Amendment rights without due process as we are seeing with the current “Red Flag Laws.”
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
Comment: If a patient tells a doctor he is planning a mass shooting attack, surely the doctor would report it, wouldn’t they?
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
Comment: Aren’t resource officers “Good guys with guns”? Haven’t we been told that this is not the answer?
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
Comment: Hasn’t this already been done? Obama’s three step emergency response plan is: Run, Hide, Wait for police, EMS and coroner to arrive. You can add Pray between Hide and Wait, depending on your beliefs. No, that would be government supporting religion.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
Comment: Couldn’t hurt and has no effect on gun rights.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
Comment: I have no idea what this means.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
Comment: I have no idea what this means.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
Comment: Couldn’t hurt and has no effect on gun rights.
If you go to the White House website list of Executive Orders, you won’t find the above Executive Orders listed. Executive Orders
Some media implied they weren’t Executive Orders but Executive Memorandums. They aren’t on the Executive Memorandum list either. There is ONE memorandum on the list dated January 16, 2013 directing the Director of Health and Human Services to “conduct research into the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it.” The other 22 items do not appear on the list. Executive memorandums
About a year later, the White House posted this page stating than all 23 proposed actions have been completed. Significant progress on 23 Executive Actions It’s interesting that the White House simply lists the 23 actions to be taken and puts a checkmark by each one as completed, but list no explanation on how it was completed.
A more detailed list of the 23 actions was compiled by the DePaul University Law School showing the action required, the objective of the action and who the action affects. DePaul University
If you read the DePaul list, you’ll see that most of the 23 actions are administrative actions like studies, reviews, informational campaigns or directing a Federal agency to do something it should already be doing. Political smoke and mirrors that imply something is being done. But other than the actions aimed at improving the NICS system or prosecuting criminals, they will have no effect on crimes involving firearms.
I think all of the uproar over these 23 Executive Orders (or whatever they are) was wasted energy. A few of them may have affected a small percentage of individual’s 2nd Amendment rights to purchase or own a firearm. They also do very little to reduce crimes involving firearms.
Three years have passed since Obama’s first round of gun control executive orders. They haven’t had any effect on gun violence.
Yesterday, in another lame attempt to reduce gun crimes, he announced four more executive orders. Fact Sheet: New Executive Orders
I did not listen to the President’s speech. I read what was posted on the White House webpage. I understand he talked about or elaborated on some things that are not mentioned on the webpage. This is a brief explanation of the four new Executive Orders as listed on the webpage:
- Keep guns out of the wrong hands through background checks.
- If you’re in the business of selling firearms, you must get a license and conduct background checks.
- Background checks for people buying firearms through a trust, or corporation.
- Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch has sent a letter to States highlighting the importance of receiving complete criminal history.
- FBI to process background checks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Make our communities safer from gun violence.
- Direct federal prosecutors to focus on enforcement of our gun laws.
- Add 200 new ATF agents and investigators to help enforce our gun laws.
- Establish an Internet Investigation Center to track illegal online firearms.
- Dedicate $4 million and additional personnel to the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.
- Ensure dealers notify law enforcement if guns are lost or stolen in transit.
- Renew domestic violence outreach efforts.
- Increase mental health treatment and reporting to the background check system.
- A new $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care.
- Social Security Administration will forward information to the NICS on beneficiaries who, for mental health reasons, are prohibited from possessing firearms.
- DHS to remove legal barriers preventing reporting info about people prohibited from possessing a gun for mental health reasons.
- Shape the future of gun safety technology.
- Directed government agencies to conduct or sponsor research into gun safety technology.
- Review smart gun technology on a regular basis.
- Ask Congress to support resources for 200 new ATF agents and $500 million investment to address mental health issues.
- Call on States, local governments and private-sector leaders to do all they can to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
My Comments:
Items 2, 3 and 4 will have no effect on MY 2nd Amendment rights. Other than the focusing on enforcement of current gun laws and improving information in the NICS system, the rest of the items will have no effect on reducing gun crimes.
The items on the Social Security Administration and doctors sharing mental health information with NICS concern many people. It suspends 2nd Amendment rights without due process. It could also prevent people from seeking medical care for fear it will result in their right to self-protection being denied.
The first bullet comment under item 1 is what most gun rights groups will be against. I have no problem in ensuring people in the business of selling firearms should have a license. The problem will be the definition of “people in the business of selling firearms”.
There are already laws on the books in some States that consider letting your buddy shoot your gun at the range or asking a neighbor to take care of your guns while you are on vacation an “illegal transfer”. So would it be an illegal gun sale if I decide to sell to a friend all of my high-powered firearms because my arthritis kept me from shooting them? This will be the sticking point with most gun rights advocates.
There is a down side to forcing small volume, “hobby” gun dealers to get a Federal Firearm License (FFL). Currently they can only buy and sell guns from licensed dealers, pawn shops and individuals. If they were a licensed FFL dealer, they could buy firearms wholesale from gun manufactures, increasing the number of guns they could put in circulation.
The problem with Universal Background Checks or a background check for every gun transfer is that gun law experts agree, it will not work without 100% gun registration. This is the part of the Universal Background Check plan Liberals don’t talk about. Why? Because we all know in every country that has confiscated guns, registration was the first step, long before confiscation was ever mentioned. This is what gun owner’s fear.
And just a reminder, in 2012, Canada dismantled its 12 year old gun registration program. Why you ask? Don’t Liberals say registration is the solution to many gun violence problems? Canada dismantled the program because after 12 years and an expenditure of $2.7 billion, the registration program had never been credited with solving or preventing a single crime. Read the Story
Summary:
- These Executive Orders will have little effect on gun crime.
- They will only affect law-abiding citizens.
- Improving the info in the NICS system may help.
- Increasing prosecutions for gun crimes is a good thing.
- People fear the government defining “in the business of selling firearms”.
- People fear Universal Background Checks will include registration.