# Do Presidential Emergency Powers give the President the right to disarm the nation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2016, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374 "2016-07-08T11:23:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/1 "2016-07-08T11:23:01Z")
Hi, In the wake of so many mass shootings in the US in recent months, what can the President do with his emergency powers? The peace is threatened. If the President does have the power to act forcefully, would this violate the Second Amendment, and is this an obstruction to enforcing Emergency Powers? I look forward to your feedback. > **[emergency powers](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/emergency_powers)** Wex ALL PAGESARTICLESESPAÑOLINBOX PROJECTSEARCHFAQ Emergency Powers The Constitution does not expressly grant the President additional war powers or other powers in times of national emergency. However, many scholars think that the Framers implied these powers because the structural design of the Executive Branch enables it to act faster than the Legislative Branch. Because the Constitution remains silent on the issue, the courts cannot grant the Executive Branch these powers when it tries to wield them. The courts will only recognize a right of the Executive Branch to use emergency powers if Congress has granted such powers to the President. … ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/2 "2016-07-08T11:38:12Z")
Your link offers three examples of attempts to exercise emergency powers. Two were rejected by the courts and one upheld… but even the one upheld, Korematsu v. United States’ acceptance of the internment of US citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, has not survived well as precedent. It’s been explicitly disavowed by the current administration, and Korematsu’s conviction was overturned after the war by a federal district court following the submission of evidence that the original conviction upheld by the Supreme Court was obtained by withholding material evidence from the defense. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/3 "2016-07-08T11:42:54Z")
IANAL, but not a chance. It would also be impossible to execute, and probably would get hundreds or more killed. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/4 "2016-07-08T12:49:19Z")
I often say satirically that the three most important issues in today’s American politics are guns, guns and guns. This thread makes me aware that there is a fourth important issue: Guns. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/5 "2016-07-08T13:07:30Z")
nobody can disarm the nation, except We, the People, by constitutional amendment. I’m against civilians having military style weapons, but all Americans have a right to have handguns. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/6 "2016-07-08T14:29:10Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > nobody can disarm the nation, except We, the People, by constitutional amendment. > > I’m against civilians having military style weapons, but all Americans have a right to have handguns. So if there were a constitutional amendment that would take away your right to own guns, you would just hand them over? ---
**Author:** ![Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffes_Can_t_Dance)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/7 "2016-07-08T14:42:08Z")
Although he may not realize it, the President is not a dictator. He does not have the power to disarm the nation. The constitution protects we the people from such Tyranny. • Illegal handguns are the guns involved in the most murders, by far. And it’s not legal gun owners pulling the trigger. Gang members and other slimy thugs are the perpetrators. The US does not have a gun problem, it has a gang problem. Gangs kill the innocent, while making hostages of the innocent who live among them. The real issue of gangs, much like the issue of radical Islam, will not be addressed by leftists because it is a problem encompassed by people who are not white. • In such a hypothetical “emergency order”, the bad guys who own guns illegally, for whom are responsible for the majority of gun violence, would refuse to turn their guns in. The good guys; those legal gun owners who account for almost zero gun violence, would be forced to turn their guns over, leaving us an unarmed, defenseless society, vulnerable to both government and the bad guys among society. • The same government who inprisoned innocent Japanese Americans; that spies on us and monitors us illegally, should not be trusted in any form. • Leftists, in order to push their tyrannical ways, will continue to manipulate gun stats. They will falsely label “mass” shooting; They will provide the number of gun deaths, duplicitously leaving out that over 60% of said number is related to suicudes; They will conveniently leave out the fact that far more lives are saved by guns than taken; They will inaccurately cite some oppressive European country’s gun laws; And they will continue to mix up what semi and automatic weapons are: The most uninformed and intellectually lazy bunch on the lot. • The truth is, leftists want to disarm Americans of all guns. Leftists want the government to be this all-powering being. Leftist men, usually more soft that a poodle’s dump, fear being emasculated. They are the submissive sorts, so they want all men to fall in line with their cuckold ways. Mind you, they aren’t cuckolds for choosing not to own a gun themselves. I’ve never held a gun, let alone owned one. They are cuckolds for attempting to take away the choices of other people to own, or not own a gun. "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.” -Mohandas Gandhi ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/8 "2016-07-08T14:54:31Z")
I’m sure I’m not the first to think of this, but making everyone a potential terrorist seems the next logical step if gun violence reaches levels akin to war zones. I’m not advocating anything like that, but it’s reasonable to assume some people are. The question is how do you make everyday searches and seizures palatable to the public? Israel must have similar policies. It’s a democratic country but the threat of mass murder is always present. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/9 "2016-07-08T14:55:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So if there were a constitutional amendment that would take away your right to own guns, you would just hand them over? No, he’d do what thousands of gun owners did ca. 2008: manage to “lose” their entire collection in a fishing accident. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/10 "2016-07-08T15:17:29Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So if there were a constitutional amendment that would take away your right to own guns, you would just hand them over? Yeah, I would…if I had any. 😛 I’d fight against such an Amendment, but I’d recognize that this IS our process and, if enough of my fellow citizens really wanted to create an Amendment to do away with the 2nd and clear the way for broad gun bans then that’s how things would be. I’m guessing, however, that if it went the other way, that the gun-banning side wouldn’t quit trying to ban by judicial fiat whenever and where ever they could. As to the OP, no…emergency powers does not give the president the ‘right to disarm the nation’. Any president who actually tried to go this route would almost certainly be impeached, especially if they tried to do it based on the justification of the last few months as the OP is saying. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/11 "2016-07-08T15:28:35Z")
The first thing the President should do with his Executive Powers is to outlaw guns in Chicago. There have already been 1,400 shooting victims so far just this year. > [@](#): > > As the city wraps up the fifth month of 2016, the Chicago Tribune reports there have already been more than 1,400 shooting victims so far this year. > **[More Than 60 Shot in Chicago Memorial Day Weekend Violence](https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/violence-chicago-shootings-memorial-day-weekend-police-homicide/60883/)** > > Even as Chicago Police beefed up patrols for Memorial Day, more than 60 people were shot during the violent three-day holiday weekend, an uptick in violence that Mayor Rahm Emanuel called “unacceptable.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/12 "2016-07-08T15:40:55Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > The first thing the President should do with his Executive Powers is to outlaw guns in Chicago. There have already been 1,400 shooting victims so far just this year. Specifically, which “executive powers” are you referring to? Are these the same powers that would allow him to shut down abortion clinics because ~1M “unborn babies” have been killed every year since Roe v Wade? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/13 "2016-07-08T16:26:04Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Two were rejected by the courts and one upheld… but even the one upheld, Korematsu v. United States’ acceptance of the internment of US citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, has not survived well as precedent. It’s been explicitly disavowed by the current administration, and Korematsu’s conviction was overturned after the war by a federal district court following the submission of evidence that the original conviction upheld by the Supreme Court was obtained by withholding material evidence from the defense. I think the problem here is our government and judicial system found a way to go there in the first place. It’s great the current administration disavows this but the next one may not be as high minded. For instance the current administration disavowed torture too but clearly the last administration was fine with it and the found a way to do it legally. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/14 "2016-07-08T20:19:21Z")
\*\*Do Presidential Emergency Powers give the President the right to disarm the nation? \*\* In a word: No. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/15 "2016-07-08T20:30:35Z")
> [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](#): > > Illegal handguns are the guns involved in the most murders, by far. And it’s not legal gun owners pulling the trigger. Every gun used in a crime started out as a legal purchase. Gun owners should be held accountable if they permit their guns to fall into the hands of criminals, children or the mentally impaired. I’m not saying they should be charged with murder, but they should be charged with negligent gun ownership, with a commensurate fine or imprisonment. Any gun owner who keeps a loaded gun in the nightstand that injures or kills a child should be imprisoned for a long, long time. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/16 "2016-07-08T20:46:19Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Every gun used in a crime started out as a legal purchase. Gun owners should be held accountable if they permit their guns to fall into the hands of criminals, children or the mentally impaired. I’m not saying they should be charged with murder, but they should be charged with negligent gun ownership, with a commensurate fine or imprisonment. Any gun owner who keeps a loaded gun in the nightstand that injures or kills a child should be imprisoned for a long, long time. If someone steals my car and uses it to help rob a bank, should I be responsible for that as well? What if they steal it, get drunk and run over a bunch of kids and nuns carrying puppies to an orphanage? Are you proposing that we should all be responsible for every item we own that might be stolen and used in an illegal manner…or just guns because you don’t like guns? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/17 "2016-07-08T20:48:23Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Every gun used in a crime started out as a legal purchase. [Not really.](http://www.kcra.com/news/over-100-guns-stolen-in-brazen-rocklin-gun-store-burglary/39350586) And I assume you’d want lengthy prison terms for any parent whose child died because they got access to prescription drugs or household cleaners that weren’t adequately secured. We would need considerably more prison space. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/18 "2016-07-09T01:21:56Z")
Weapons which are stolen have to come from somewhere. Unless the gun was manufactured illegally, yeah, it started out legal. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/19 "2016-07-09T01:29:52Z")
Does the Commander in Chief powers allow the President to disarm the military? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374/20 "2016-07-09T01:55:00Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > [emergency powers | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/emergency_powers) Came here specifically to mention Lincoln’s suspension of _habeas corpus_. The court ruled the suspension unconstitutional, but unless Congress was willing to impeach Lincoln if he didn’t comply, there was no way to enforce the decision. Who guards the guardians? Ultimately, the only check on the Presidency is Congress’s control of the purse strings and its willingness to impeach. Or given an out-and-out coup d’etat by the Executive Branch, the willingness of people to take up arms and fight. Which is why back in the late 18th century, people were a bit paranoid about the seizure of arms. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-presidential-emergency-powers-give-the-president-the-right-to-disarm-the-nation/759374.md?page=2)