Executive Action

I am not all “up in arms” about Obama stealing my guns for several reasons, chief among them being that his executive orders amount to the classic “sounding brass; filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Actually, it is a “tale told by an idiot” which is full of sound and fury, and sounding brass is properly compared to tinkling cymbals, but I like the mixed metaphor better. Otherwise I would either have to call Obama an idiot or compare gun control to tinkling cymbals, and neither one really works for me.

He has not “closed the loophole” allowing purchase of guns at trade shows and online without background checks, because no such loophole exists. Dealers at trade shows are required to do background checks, and online dealers are required to ship firearms to a licensed dealer to have a background check performed before delivery to the purchaser. Perhaps better enforcement is needed, but the laws are in place, so Obama’s executive order is essentially window dressing.

He does attempt to put a halt to those at trade shows who claim to be “hobbyists” and therefor exempt from regulation, but only to the extent of pointing out that doing so is already illegal. Enforcement is not going to be any easier in the future than it is now, so I’m not sure what this part of his proclamation actually accomplishes.

In any case, not one mass shooting to date has been performed with a gun bought online or at a gun show without a background check, so Obama is not even locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen, he is locking the door of a barn which has never contained any horses.

He is not adding 200 new agents to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, he is asking Congress to fund that addition. Congress isn’t going to do that, so write that off as mere rhetoric.

The rest of it is a lot of fluff about background checks but, again, not one shooting has been a issue with a firearm purchased as a result of a background check failing to discover information. Where persons who could not legally buy a gun had them in their possession, the gun was either stolen or was purchased for them by another person who was legally able to buy the firearm. How are background checks going to stop that?

I’m not opposed to background checks, not in the least bit. But I don’t think that they, or any amount of puffery and window dressing from the White House, is going to solve the problem.

What I do have a problem with is the whole Obama meme of, “If Congress won’t do it, I will.”  There is simply nothing in the constitution which authorizes that. The statement itself is an abuse of power, as are any executive orders which arise from it.