Obama to Issue Gun Control Executive Orders Next Week…What “Checks and Balances”?

1722924_1319321378127988_8942781069457189654_nFreedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. – Ronald Reagan

The Washington Post reports that

HONOLULU — President Obama will press ahead with a set of executive actions on guns next week despite growing concerns in the United States over terrorism that have dampened some Americans’ enthusiasm for tighter firearms restrictions.

The president will meet Monday with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch to finalize a series of new gun control measures and will announce his package of proposals soon after, according to several individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan is not yet public.

One of the main proposals Obama is poised to adopt would require some unlicensed gun dealers to get licenses and conduct background checks on potential buyers. The change is aimed at occasional dealers, including some who sell online frequently or rent tables at gun shows but do not have a storefront.

Obama began examining how he could tighten the nation’s gun rules after October’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. Administration lawyers have spent months reviewing various proposals to make sure they can withstand legal challenges.

The idea of requiring informal gun dealers to obtain a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and of conducting background checks came up two years ago when White House officials drafted a proposal for dealers who sell at least 50 guns annually.

The idea was shelved because of legal concerns but gained new momentum after the Roseburg shooting. At that point, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she would pursue such a requirement by executive action if elected. Administration officials gave the proposal another look and determined it could be done in a way that was legally defensible.

The White House review has been conducted in relative secrecy, soliciting input from gun safety groups without specifying which policies the administration might ultimately adopt. In the past month, Obama has met with former representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was gravely injured in a 2011 mass shooting, and her husband, Mark Kelly, and with former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, which Bloomberg helped start.

In Obama’s weekly radio address, released a day earlier than usual, the president said he was moving unilaterally because Congress had failed to address the growing problem of gun violence.

“A few months ago, I directed my team at the White House to look into any new actions I can take to help reduce gun violence,” he said. “And on Monday, I’ll meet with our attorney general, Loretta Lynch, to discuss our options.

“Because I get too many letters from parents, and teachers, and kids to sit around and do nothing,” Obama continued. “I get letters from responsible gun owners who grieve with us every time these tragedies happen; who share my belief that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms; and who share my belief we can protect that right while keeping an irresponsible, dangerous few from inflicting harm on a massive scale.”

In reviewing its options, the administration has shut out congressional Republicans, who joined with some Democrats in helping block legislation to expand background checks after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

“The administration has not communicated with us, and we have not been briefed,” Doug ­Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), said in an email. “We will consider options once we have information, but what seems apparent is none of these ideas would have prevented the recent atrocities. Our focus should be on the consistent causes of these acts — mental illnesses and terrorism — rather than infringing on law-abiding Americans’ constitutional rights.”

While most Republican presidential candidates did not provide immediate reaction to Obama’s announcement, they are expected to talk about it in the coming days. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is scheduled to attend a gun show in Orlando on Sunday, where he will discuss the high marks he has received from the National Rifle Association.

Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), said that “President Obama is trying to distract Americans from his failure to address the true threat of radical Islamic terrorism, and instead going after the rights of law-abiding American citizens — it is complete lunacy. If Ted Cruz is elected president, the lawlessness will end on Day One, and Americans’ personal liberties will be restored and protected.”

Obama will make his case for additional gun restrictions in a number of forums in the coming month, according to aides, including during his Jan. 12 State of the Union address.

While beefing up background checks has strong support — a Quinnipiac University poll in December found that 89 percent of Americans supported checks for purchases at gun shows and for online sales — Obama’s actions also come as Americans have grown more fearful about the prospect of terrorist strikes and are expressing an openness to having ordinary citizens carry guns.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted last month in the wake of the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist shootings, for example, found that 53 percent of respondents opposed a ban on assault weapons ban, a record high. When asked which is the better reaction to terrorism, 47 percent said encouraging more people to carry guns legally, while 42 percent preferred enacting stricter gun control laws.

Why are Obama, his Administration, and their “fellow travelers” so intent over getting our guns?

If they cared so much about our nation’s children, their supposed reason for gun confiscation, they would not be pro-abortion, which has murdered 56 million children.

David Mamet, in an  article for The Daily Beast, published on January 27, 2013, wrote the following:

…where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining “needs”? And note that the president did not say “I have more money than I need,” but “You and I have more than we need.” Who elected him to speak for another citizen?

It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. “One-size-fits-all,” and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is “slavery.”

The Founding Fathers, far from being ideologues, were not even politicians. They were an assortment of businessmen, writers, teachers, planters; men, in short, who knew something of the world, which is to say, of Human Nature. Their struggle to draft a set of rules acceptable to each other was based on the assumption that we human beings, in the mass, are no damned good—that we are biddable, easily confused, and that we may easily be motivated by a Politician, which is to say, a huckster, mounting a soapbox and inflaming our passions.

The Constitution’s drafters did not require a wag to teach them that power corrupts: they had experienced it in the person of King George. The American secession was announced by reference to his abuses of power: “He has obstructed the administration of Justice … he has made Judges dependant on his will alone … He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws … He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass out people and to eat out their substance … imposed taxes upon us without our consent… [He has] fundamentally altered the forms of our government.”

…The police do not exist to protect the individual. They exist to cordon off the crime scene and attempt to apprehend the criminal. We individuals are guaranteed by the Constitution the right to self-defense. This right is not the Government’s to “award” us. They have never been granted it.

The so-called assault weapons ban is a hoax. It is a political appeal to the ignorant. The guns it supposedly banned have been illegal (as above) for 78 years. Did the ban make them “more” illegal? The ban addresses only the appearance of weapons, not their operation.

Will increased cosmetic measures make anyone safer? They, like all efforts at disarmament, will put the citizenry more at risk. Disarmament rests on the assumption that all people are good, and, basically, want the same things.

But if all people were basically good, why would we, increasingly, pass more and more elaborate laws?

The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution.

President Obama seems to understand the Constitution as a “set of suggestions.” I cannot endorse his performance in office, but he wins my respect for taking those steps he deems necessary to ensure the safety of his family. Why would he want to prohibit me from doing the same?

Why, indeed? The Communist Leader, Vladimir Lenin ,answered that question very succinctly:

One man with a gun can control 100 without one.

Now, I am not one prone to conspiracy theories, but I question the timing of the whole thing. I believe that all of this “solution” was already prepared, and Obama and his sycophants were just waiting for the appropriate trigger mechanism to begin their push for gun confiscation. Unfortunately, the Islamic Terrorist Attack in San Bernadino, California provided them the excuse that they were waiting for.

So now, even as I write this, there are Executive Orders, sitting on the president’s desk, waiting to be signed.

This should come as no surprise to anyone. He has stated, numerous times, that if Congress will not give him what he wants, he will go around them.

Yes, our Founding Fathers put in a System of Checks and Balances. However, that system relies on the willingness of politicians to enforce them.

Unfortunately, in 2016, we have a bunch of professional politicians, who are too afraid of being thrown off of the Gravy Train, to tell the Conductor he’s on the wrong track. When the new Speaker of the House just recently demonstrated his willingness to be a doppelganger of the previous Vichy Republican in that position, by getting the Omnibus Bill passed, he left no doubt as to the state of his intestinal fortitude.

Hurry up, November.

Until He Comes, 

KJ