Bolding added. I daresay the context in which Trump was using the phrase was little more than “Obama bad! All cheer for Trump now!”, which alongside the companion context of “Hillary bad! All cheer for Trump now!” comprises a significant part of his public-speaking repertoire.
But snootiness aside, what *did *Obama actually attempt to do and, for that matter, what could he do if congress didn’t initiate the action through legislation or SCOTUS through a ruling? I don’t recall any executive orders along those lines, though there may have been some for all I know.
Because I’m a fan of due process? Because I don’t like to take a crap on those who suffer from mental illness? For several reasons, but that’s not really the point. The OP and subsequent asked for what actions the Obama administration took. Voila, ask and ye shall receive.
Nominate more pro-gun justices, and then watch as gun rights groups sue every one of them into compliance or bankruptcy. I can only hope.
[quote=“snfaulkner, post:23, topic:785460”]
M855 .223 ammo. Through interpretation, the ATF had proposed to ban this type of ammo and after sustained efforts against, the plan was dropped.
Because I’m a fan of due process? Because I don’t like to take a crap on those who suffer from mental illness? For several reasons, but that’s not really the point. The OP and subsequent asked for what actions the Obama administration took. Voila, ask and ye shall receive.
Nominate more pro-gun justices, and then watch as gun rights groups sue every one of them into compliance or bankruptcy. I can only hope.
Thanks for the response and cite, but all you had to say was “armor piercing”.
Bone wrote: “I need to register it as an assault weapon - and that would mean I would be prohibited from transferring it to anyone including my estate or my heirs.”
I don’t see the problem. I mean, doesn’t the bumper sticker say we can have them when we can pry them from your cold dead hands?
I think gun owners better hope that Trump’s defense of their Second Amendment freedoms is a lot stronger than Obama’s assault on their Second Amendment freedoms apparently was.
The whole process of appointing a representative payee has multiple procedural safeguards built in, including advance notice, requests for reconsideration, appeal rights, and so forth. Why do you not consider this due process?
Moreover, this isn’t taking a crap on those who suffer from mental illness. We are talking about people deemed so incapacitated that their independent decision-making authority has been taken away from them. They don’t have control of their money any more, which also means they don’t have control of where they live or what foods they have available or any of the really fundamental life decisions. Do you really consider the ability to purchase a gun is more important than the right to decide where you live?
Who is “them”? In most places, the policy decisions of a governing body, including city councils and similar local units, are entitled to absolute immunity. Who are you planning on bankrupting?
Moreover, “pro-gun” is not the same thing as “wants unlimited and unregulated gun ownership.” Even Justice Scalia in DC v. Heller noted that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
Seriously, these are your examples of horrific assaults on your rights?!?
Are you arguing that we should do away with background checks, that any criminal ought to be allowed to buy any weapon whatsoever? If so, why? If not, how does a rule that says people buying through a trust have to go through the same background checks as people buying individually affect your rights?
And whose rights, exactly, are assaulted if law enforcement has to be notified of stolen guns? The criminals who stole the guns?
You had asked about examples of executive orders. I’d call the rep-payee and the attempted ban on green-tip ammo “substantial”, but happily, we live under a government of divided powers, and so the most significant changes that Obama wanted, like an assault weapons ban, require Congress to cooperate, so they didn’t meet the criteria you asked about. You said you couldn’t recall any examples of his gun-control executive orders, and I provided several examples, so I consider this a case of ignorance fought.
That may be true in some cases, but not all. Again, from the ACLU:
One article from a disability rights advocate and one of President Obama’s appointees to the National Council on Disability:
The city is not immune to lawsuits for civil rights violations. DC paid, Chicago paid, San Francisco has paid. They are rich targets so lawsuits are unlikely to deter them, but smaller cities can be easier targets to set precedents. If they have to spend enough money defending themselves, they may eventually decide it’s not worth it.
They were examples, but the editorial description of *horrific *was your addition.
There are a lot of laws that may be good in principle, but in practice are used as a way for people to push additional gun control. Background checks should be fine, except then once you have that system there will be push to add more and more types of people to the NICS database, like people on rep payee. A trust was a way to transfer NFA weapons where otherwise they would be illegal or prohibited by the local LEA. Scrap the NFA and the trusts wouldn’t be used. So while I may think that background checks are fine, the way they are used would make me also be fine if we burned it all down.
How would this be enforced? Oh yeah, only if there was a registry. Reporting stolen guns is great, but not as a way to mandate a registry.
Just to clarify here, it absolutely was about taking stuff away from them. You seem to think that it was only when purchasing new firearms, but some lifelong collectors were put in a position where they’d have to dispose of their entire collection, or risk felony charges.
See above. I wasn’t trying to list his most egregious actions, just the ones that he could do without Congress or SCOTUS. His options were, thankfully, fairly constrained in that regard.
The answer’s a bit technical, but some CLEO’s were refusing to sign off on any Class 3 weapons. The trust mechanism was the only way people living in those jurisdictions had for purchasing Class 3 weapons, and Obama wanted to take that away from them.
The FFLs they’d punish for the “crime” of failing to report a crime.
Yes, I did, and I don’t wish to imply I want to move the goalposts. I’m just mildly surprised by how tepid an “assault” it was. Anyway, Trump got his cheers, I guess. I kinda look forward to his “I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms … Never ever.” becoming his version of “Read my lips - no new taxes!” All it would take, apparently, is a fairly minor executive action that has something to do with guns in some way and blammo - the NRA sees him as a betrayer.
Contesting? Is anyone doubting that these executive orders actually happened? What I’m sensing is at most mild surprise at how minor they are and doubts they come up to the level of an “assault.”
I’d like a cite for this. Under federal law, inclusion in NICS doesn’t prohibit possession; it prohibits purchase.
Because some local law enforcement officers refused to sign off on class 3 weapons, it’s okay to do a “workaround” to make it possible to acquire one without a background check? How does this even make sense? (I assume that you do know that the final rule passed by the Obama Administration eliminated the requirement for CLEO approval anyway, so your argument makes even less sense now.)
What are the reasons why a FFL might not want to report the theft of firearms?
The most obvious to me is that the guns weren’t really stolen in the first place; the FFL sold them to a prohibited person and wants some cover for their disappearance, without the bother of having anybody actually investigate the "theft"contemporaneously. Another possibility is that the FFL failed to use reasonable precautions to prevent theft, and wants that fact just buried (example: Bulls Eye Shooters Supply in Washington State, which “lost track” of several hundred guns, including the one used in the Beltway Sniper shootings). Having a gun stolen is not good, but it may or may not indicate a systemic problem; having 422 guns, more than a quarter of your inventory, missing would seem to indicate some major issues, issues that are worth investigating.
Federal firearms licensing laws impose various requirements on licensed gun dealers: they have to do background checks, for example. Do you consider background checks an “assault” on gun rights? If not, what is the fundamental distinction between a requirement that a dealer do background checks and a requirement that he or she report stolen guns? How is the dealer’s 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms infringed by a requirement to report thefts as a condition of maintaining a license (not a condition of bearing arms, but a condition of selling arms)?
So … a friend of mine moved to Arizona recently … this friend really hates guns and thinks they should be removed from our society completely … well, in Arizona, not owning a gun comes at a social cost … he never gets invited to go out an “drinks some beer with the boys” because “the boys” are out shooting their guns …
This constitutions a direct assault on my friend’s Second Amendment Right to NOT own a gun or play with them … color me indigo if you will, but that’s a view of our rights no one likes talking about …
“If you give your government the Right to prohibit a thing, then you also give your government the Right to require such a thing” – Someone famous – a long time ago …
I guess we need a definition of what a “dumb American” is to know for sure but I would say this is wrong to some degree.
It is true you do not need to take the SAT and get a certain score or better to buy a gun.
But we do restrict guns from dumb people. We restrict them from certain felons who were dumb enough to commit the crime and/or dumb enough to be caught. We restrict guns from children who are a form of dumb (i.e. not old enough to be considered to have the smarts to be trusted with use of a gun). The mentally handicapped and so on.
More to the point though is an underlying notion I see in this thread (from some) that ANY regulation on owning a gun is an “assault on their freedoms”.
HurricaneDitka posted things such as, “ATF is finalizing a rule to ensure that dealers who ship firearms notify law enforcement if their guns are lost or stolen in transit.” Really? That is an “assault” on gun owning freedoms?
Newsflash for gun owners:
NO constitutional right is absolute. They are all restricted to some degree. Even free speech. Most people are fine with those common sense restrictions (e.g. slander laws for free speech). This knee jerk reaction that ANY RESTRICTION WHATSOEVER is an assault on gun ownership is absurd.
I think it is eminently sensible for guns dealers to notify the ATF if their guns were stolen while being shipped and cannot for the life of me see how this is an assault on gun owners.
