What a pile of nothing. Both the POTUS and the SCHMOTUS had been warning that Obama would take hard constructive action on gun control. For days advocates of the constitution were worried that Obama would seek to destroy the Second Amendment by executive fiat. Instead his actions were the typical political "We will do better and we will study." One thing the POTUS missed...there is no executive order preventing the
Federal Government from selling weapons to Mexican Drug
Cartels...everyone would support that one. Below is the list of all 23 Executive Orders regarding gun control issued by Obama today--annotated with some "pithy" comments (in Red).
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
EMBARGOED UNTIL THE START OF THE PRESIDENT’S REMARKS
January 16, 2013
Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions
Today, the President is announcing that he and the Administration will:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system. Wow..the Govt. Talking to Each Other?
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. This one reflects a problem many anticipated when Obamacare was passed ---your health records are not your own anymore. It it is not a 2nd Amendment issue but it does seem like a violation of the 4th Amendment's protection against illegal search and seizure.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system. Wow..States sharing information with the Federal Government...just like they do with fingerprints and DNA.
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. Holder is going to do a study.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun. The operative word is propose.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers. I bet you it's going to be a strongly worded letter.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign. Advertising---I believe in it--heck it pays my salary--but the federal government is lousy at it. This should not be a priority for a country $16.5 Trillion in the hole.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission). Review? Shouldn't they be doing this already?
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. A Memo? Shouldn't they be doing this already?
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement. Release? Shouldn't they be doing this already?
11. Nominate an ATF director. Obama has been POTUS for 4 years and hasn't named anyone to the permanent position of ATF director (all of them have been interim choices). Shouldn't he have done this already? Hey look America--I am going to do my freaking job!
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations. No problem here
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime. Gee, enforce the existing gun laws...this guy is a genius--what a freaking brilliant idea!
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. CDC gets to do a study too---oh goody. Of course there is one issue with this---it's against the law. On the CDC appropriations bill Congress has inserted a provision against the health agency from researching (and politicizing) gun violence. The provision has been inserted every year for a very long time--and for the past four years the bill was signed by Barack Obama.
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. Now Holder has to do TWO reports. I bet you he is beginning to think he is back in High School.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes. OOOOH That one is going to hurt. Can they also ask about computers in the home?
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities. OH GEE, Another strongly worded letter--Mr Blix?
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education. A Model? It looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover. This one is going to be different---it's going to be a VERY strongly worded letter.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges. They are supposed to go live, shouldn't they be doing this already?
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations. They always wait till the last minute to finalize.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health. Hey Obama how come the black guy in your cabinet has to write two reports...and all these white folks have to do is talk? What a racist!
18 comments:
Note that nowhere does the Emperor advocate fighting the ACLU and other opponents of institutionalizing the mentally ill.
Note that nowhere does the Emperor advocate fighting the ACLU and other opponents of institutionalizing the mentally ill.
Wonder why #23 doesn't include Attorney General on the dialogue on gun violence? Oh, that's right -- he's responsible for Fast and Furious, which led to hundreds of deaths.
very very unimpressive. Generate lots of useless reports, waste lots of money, accompolish absolutely NOTHING. How about banning the federal government from selling firearms to mexican drug cartekls? How abour prosecuting federal agents and their superiors who sold firearms to mexican drug cartels? If you want to educate people about gun safetly, rather have the federal government bumble about and do its' usual incompetant and ridiculously expensive job, why not give the money to the NRA . They have been doing an excellent jobs of firearms education and training for years.
None of these would have affected Adam Lanza. He didn't buy his guns. He didn't undergo a background check.
What would help?
1. Abolish pretend 'gun free zones'.
2. Encourage teachers, janitors, and other school employees to get added training and equipment to permit them to protect the children under their care.
I would also support the following:
1. Institutional death penalty for BATFE: for the illegal and botched fast and furious gun running program. Explosives analysis should go to FBI. Tobacco and alcohol tax should go back to IRS. Regulation of firearms should return to states.
Unless "Have someone around to shoot bad guy in the head" is on there, I remain unimpressed.
So basically, "enforce the gun laws we have," "write some memos," and "don't be so damn picky about privacy." None of this will actually change anything, but I bet it'll cost a lot of money.
That actually looks pretty good. I don't see any that are very worrying or dangerous. I count 7 that might actually be a tiny bit helpful (mainly improved background checks), 2 that I don't understand at all and the rest seem to be just ordering everyone to do what they should have been doing already, or meaningless boilerplate.
I almost panicked when I read that the Great Oh had issued twenty-three exec orders regarding guns. Omigawd, I thought, this is gonna be sweeping, and intrusive, and nonsensicle.
Then I saw the list. "Print brochures telling children that bullets HURT!" "Fund a study to see if pink guns cause less crime." "Find out where the ATF boss went."
His base wanted him to do something BIG, and so he issued twenty-three - count 'em! Twenty-three! - Orders firmly establishing the new era of Urban Bliss and Prosperity.
The base is probably ecstatic, and will remain so until someone over at Think?Progress actually reads the new rules.
And then they're gonna be pissed.
So, watch for Big Oh to announce a second set of Executive Orders regarding guns right around Friday afternoon. In this new set, he'll ban all rifles, he'll ban any handguns that can hold more than one bullet at a time, ammunition will be sold and delivered only via e-mail, and Los Zetas will finally be given explicit authority within ATF.
Presidential farts in the wind...
"Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence."
Isn't this one in direct contradiction to statutory law prohibiting the CDC from doing any such thing?
Odd, nothing in there addressing the one thing that linked all the shootings he mentioned-- the fact they were all gun free zones.
He talked about these folks being denied their rights to peaceful assembly, religion, etc. by the gunmen. But nothing about the laws or regulations which deprived them of their basic right to self-defense and preservation of their lives.
Bold stuff! All that manly clarifying and issuing of directives to committees to write reports. I'm just blown away by the leadership here. What a guy! Lincoln? This fellow Obama is the next Patton, the next Eisenhower! Forward!
Eh. I it is a Peggy Lee. "Is that all there is?"
However he did endorse the NRA approach:
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
Score one for the NRA.
Orders 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 are utterly non-controversial and should have been handled long ago in the ordinary course of doing business. They are utterly non-partisan.
This begs the question what took Obama so long? Does there really have to be blood on the ground before we get an ATF director? Who, exactly was on the other side of that question?
On the other hand, I would want details on what medical privacy provisions are being weakened by 2 and 3. 4 should equally focus on people unjustly denied their civil right to self defense by unjustified gun restriction. 5 should be paired with a weakening of qualified immunity in the case of illegal seizures. 14 is problematic because it turns violence into something it is not, a disease. Look up Soviet psychiatry for how badly that sort of miscategorization can turn out. And 18 needs to be watched not to turn into federal jobs pork.
#19. Oh good. Now all the shooters will know where the kids will be hiding. Brilliant.
"very very unimpressive. Generate lots of useless reports, waste lots of money, accompolish absolutely NOTHING."
Better that than actually instituting a ban.
"very very unimpressive. Generate lots of useless reports, waste lots of money, accompolish absolutely NOTHING."
Better that than actually instituting a ban.
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