Not really. I’m assuming the legal system will put the kibosh on the whole thing before I can even say “FKDH”, and probably well before the ATF police get a chance to gear up and kick some doors in.
Sure, fingers crossed.
Meantime, as a thought exercise, let’s assume some of the right-wing rhetoric is actually true and white Christian Americans really are under siege by Marxist-Cortezan liberals who want to destroy America and guns and capitalism and force everybody into gay marriages, or at least that such liberals are numerous enough to shout cheers of support for a presidential candidate who tells them that white Christians Americans are the source of all their problems, even though this is demonstrably, ridiculously untrue. Then that candidate, against all odds, gets elected and keeps staging rallies for more cheers. Is there cause for concern for what such a president might try to do under the cloak of a declared emergency?
I’m always concerned when liberals are in power. I am not, however, concerned that President Trump is opening up some sort of Pandora’s box with this national emergency declaration that’s going to result in FKDH mandating everyone over the age of 12 be forced into a gay marriage, or that the ATF police are going to magically be empowered to take away everyone’s guns, or whatever Nancy was fantasizing about.
I have indeed gathered that you are concerned about what liberals might do while remaining blind or indifferent to what Trump and Republicans are doing, so I’ll invite others to comment on how they might feel if another populist demagogue gets in power who differs from Trump only in favourite scapegoats and who is now armed with extremely vague “emergency” powers.
Thank you for posting that. I didn’t know national emergencies were so common.
I also didn’t know they sounded like the title to episodes of the big bang theory either.
If they were playing by the republican’s playbook, they would come up with some excuse to separate parents from their children, (“he was speeding/jay walking/chewing gum*, and we don’t let kids stay with lawbreakers”) then they make them read and sign forms in Spanish that takes away their right to have or even own a gun ever again, telling them that they will get their kids back if they sign, but it’s too late, they’ve already lost track of the kids, who will never be seen by their parents again, not that they ever were trying to keep track of them in the first place.
Actually, if I were a sociopath who cared more about winning than people, then that is exactly what I would do, especially if the other side were kind enough to open up the door on precedent for me.
*yes, I know that chewing gum isn’t illegal, but then, neither is seeking asylum.
The ultimate resolution of the issue will be what sort of deference the courts give to the President’s power under a national emergency declaration. Under the plain text of the law, it seems like a president has absolute discretion to define what an emergency is and to take those steps outlined in the law.
Congress has the power of the purse, but seems to have given it to the President in these circumstances. But this seems a delegation too far. If Congress passed a law that said, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President may spend all of the money Congress has allocated in any matter he pleases” then we do not have a separation of powers.
The problem that arises is that no matter what the courts do, it will be bad. If the courts side with Trump, then I can see a future Dem president doing the whole gun control thing or something else just by thinking creatively and pounding a square peg into a round hole.
If the courts rule against Trump, then we have a system where the courts are controlling the President, maybe going so far as to tell him where to deploy troops in the case of a foreign invasion, or order that the makeshift fortifications be built here and not over there.
In my view, the problem lies with these declarations in their entirety. It is the mark of a dictatorship to have “emergency” situations since 1979. The law should require that any emergency situation be approved by Congress within X number of days for ratification. I would be much more comfortable with striking down the law entirely on non-delegation grounds than I would a court deciding whether or not this is a true emergency.
How about merely reallocating a substantial chunk of money from some other program to greatly expand the ATF’s notoriously-underfunded program to inspect gun dealers? Instead of FFLs going a average of a decade or more between inspections, they’re getting an inspection at least annually, and if even one “t” isn’t crossed in their paperwork at just the right angle, the bureau goes to court immediately to shut them down and strip them of their license (with their entire inventory seized as evidence), instead of slow-walking reprimands and appeals for years.
No “new” law, but it would likely result in a significant reduction in the number of gun dealers (since less than half of dealers are fully compliant), causing the availability of new guns to decline and the prices to increase.
No, what you have there is an example of the checks and balances that our FF’s were kind enough to set up.
I actually agree with this.
Maybe take it from the FBI’s budget for doing background checks for FFLs.
But this one, Trump’s, is unique. No other declared emergency was issued immediately after congress’s denying the President funds to address the soon-to-be emergency. That is unique. And, that is an end-run around the Constitution.
Will Roberts agree?
If you’re aware of some emergency power that allows the president to move funds from the FBI’s budget for doing background checks for FFLs, I’d like to hear about it. I suspect, however, that no such emergency power exists.
See, it’s not power to move money from anywhere to anywhere the President wants. The military construction emergency power is pretty specific:
Are you saying that the FBI’s budget is set by congress, down to the department level?
Actually, I don’t think it would even require a declaration of emergency for the executive branch to use executive powers to direct the executive department of the FBI to redirect its resources from assisting gun owners to arresting them.
Another fun option for restricting guns would involve stopping imports. In recent years, four to five million guns are imported into the US annually; they all have to go through a port of entry. Under 19 US 1318(b), the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to change the services offered at any port of entry and “take any other action that may be necessary to respond” to the national emergency. If no port of entry is able to offer the service of receiving firearms, well, I guess new Taurus and Glock pistols will be more difficult to come by.
If all a national-emergency allows you to do is shift funding from one budget to another, then:
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How does that address gun control? (unless the proposal is to suddenly give the ATF a lot of funding with which to confiscate guns, but even then, that doesn’t address the underlying legal issue)
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What prevents someone like Trump from artificially setting aside a certain amount of money (i.e., give the Pentagon a budget of $100 billion more than it needs, annually) and then using it as a slush fund as he sees fit? Subject to GOP approval, of course, for the budget to pass in the first place.
No, I don’t make any claim to how precise Congress’s budgetary instructions are to the FBI. I simply asked if you were aware of an emergency power that would allow what you were proposing. It seems that you are not, which means that Nancy still appears to have been spouting lies and bullshit.
I have no doubt that the President, as head of the executive branch, has a lot of levers he can pull to harrass disfavored groups. Obama did this to gun owners already.
I just haven’t seen any evidence that a NE declaration is a useful one, at least with regard to gun owners
The executive branch has far more immediate and direct ways of screwing with firearm imports.
Give the ATF funding to harass gun owners. Arrest them for any crimes they commit, real or imagined. Detain them while running background checks. Take their kids away while running these background checks. Make them sign away their rights to ever owning a gun again in exchange for being release while under investigation, and still lose their kids.
Just as an example.
Well, What would “prevent” that would be that congress would have to create that funding, and if congress created that funding as a general slush fund for the executive, then it would not need an NE to access.
No, it means that I do not know the precise ins and outs of the legislation. I am not a lawyer, I do not have a staff of lawyers.
Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi, OTOH, does know legislation much better, and does have access to lawyers who can help. I am sure that there is something in there that can be twisted around to take advantage of the precedent that Trump is setting. Are you sure that there is not?
That I do not know the precise way that one would go about doing something is not evidence that someone else who says that they can do something is lies and bullshit. Not sure how that you would think that that logic would follow.
If you don’t know how to bake a cake, and someone else says that they can, is that them spouting lies and bullshit? (It may be, but one does not provide evidence to the other, your assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.)
Like banning bump stocks? Oh wait, that wasn’t Obama, was it? That was the guy that you supported because you were afraid that Obama would not be friendly to gun owners.
Huh, what is it that Obama did to harass gun owners already?
And I haven’t seen any evidence that a NE declaration is a useful one in building a wall, but, they managed to find a way to twist up the law to try to justify it.
This one time, he said they were clingy.
It doesn’t get much more immediate than “from this moment until the end of the emergency, no guns coming in.” Also, any such action would instantly trigger legal action from the NRA and its allies, but doing it through the emergency powers would choke off some of the possible legal arguments.