http://news.yahoo.com/democratic-senators-want-ban-assault-weapons-193340839--politics.html
Emphasis added.
I do not understand this sentence. Can someone please explain how executive powers enforce existing laws? If a law is already on the books, how does the President have the power to enforce it? Last time I checked that is not one of his powers. Do they want him to make sure the laws are enforced… um… harder?
If all the Federal, State and locals laws on the books were strictly and equally enforced, we’d have a Police State. At least up to now, neither the politicians nor the public want this. There is almost the problem of resources. There just isn’t enough money to hire the number of law enforcement officers that would be needed to enforce all the laws of the land.
While the President could issue an executive order telling law enforcement to strictly enforce all the present gun control laws, it would be really up to the various levels of law enforcement to implement this order. Ultimately its the cops on the street who would have to change their ways and start focusing more on guns.
There might be a big push for awhile, but in the long run, enforcement of gun laws would go back to “normal”. The police are always taking lots of guns off the streets. Its not as if the police are ignoring the problem, but there are also many other laws being broken that aren’t related to guns that the cops have to take care of.
A prohibited person in possession of a firearm can be sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. From my limited legal experience, unless the person is a gunrunner, the feds let the states impose the lesser state penalties in lieu. The President could also bring a federal indictment against felons in possession, or persons convicted of domestic violence in possession, in addition to state charges, and accept no plea deals.
I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it COULD be something a President could do…
Um - not to be a smart ass, but that is pretty much his entire function.
The executive branch - executes the laws that congress wrote up. His job is to put people and policies in place to make what congress said happen. There is a great deal of discretion on how this happens.
I am not sure which law(s) Bloomberg is pointing to, but use marijuana laws as an example. Currently there are state laws making Marijuana legal (more or less). This is totally in conflict with federal law. The president can order his justice department or the FBI/DEA itself to start going after marijuana dispensaries.
Want to bend over the the RIAA - the executive department can start pursuing more copyright infringement claims.
Child porn and terrorism is pretty much the only zero tolerance thing. If the president wanted to - he could authorize strict enforcement on copyright laws so if your neighbor suspected you - stings would be set up just like they are with child porn.
Want more people to pay their taxes? Change the percentage of people that are audited. Reduce the level that the Feds start charging people criminally for income tax fraud.
How often are gun dealers inspected? As long as there isn’t a legislative limit (min or max) - that is all up to the discretion of the executive branch.
Interesting. I did not realize that laws were enforced “more” or “less” than other laws.
</implicit criticism>
After the Brady bill had been in effect a while, with background checks required to purchase firearms, there was a big hoopla about how many thousands of illegal purchases had been thwarted. If legitimate (like the no-fly list, mistaken identity can be an issue, especially back when the system was new) then this would mean people who are not legally allowed to purchase a firearm attempting to do so, which is a criminal offense. Virtually (I think, in fact, literally) none of these crimes (attempts to purchase) were ever prosecuted.
Those who questioned this were told that there were not sufficient resources to pursue prosecutions. This leads to the question of how the stricter gun laws we see proposed will make the resources to enforce them appear.
It is amazing that this is news to you. Most people understand this by time they are able to move about under their own power. Every level of authority starting from when you are very small has rules with varying degrees of enforcement.