Editor’s Note – As Joe Biden and his ‘task force’ crew conduct their dog and pony show on gun violence, it is clear to most in America that there are foregone conclusions already in place – executive conclusions. The fact that the NRA will be interviewed tomorrow is just a singularly large “dog act” in the process. You can suffice it to say though, that the ‘Executive Pen’ will be in frequent use soon after along with a major legislative push. Here is what Joe Biden said yesterday:
“The president is going to act,” said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. “There are executives orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”
In fact, before the Sandy Hook incident, several other Executive Orders and legislation forced down our throats gives us clues as to what is ahead. Even in the PPACA (Obama Care) Law, the NRA successfully had language added to help prevent the gun control issue from becoming a health care issue. We ask why would anything to do with the Second Amendment be in that law? Here is what is reported by the Blaze:
The Washington Post first reported on Dec. 30 about the presence of this controversial wording. Under a section with the headline “Protection of Second Amendment Gun Rights,” the NRA-advocated wording is nestled deep within the law. The Post called the inclusion, “a largely overlooked but significant challenge to a movement in American medicine to treat firearms as a matter of public health.”
As the outlet also noted, it was in the final stretch of the debate over Obama’s health care legislation that the NRA successfully pushed to insert this language. Below, see the portions of the Affordable Care Act that include mentions of firearms and the parameters through which doctors must operate in questioning patients (read the entire health care bill here):
We can already see where the pen has been used to make it especially onerous for gun dealers in southern border states. When the Federal Government does not enforce the laws equally, we have tyranny. Why is it legal to use executive powers in only four states to control private business that is not exacted on the other 46 states and territories? Read the following article and consider the “equal protection clause” in the 14th amendment.
Judges look favorably on Obama gun reporting rule
By David Ingram – Reuters
(Reuters) – A federal appeals court signaled on Wednesday it was prepared to uphold a regulation designed to detect the sale of semi-automatic rifles to Mexican drug cartels, one of the few gun control measures put forward so far by the Obama administration.
Gun retailers and manufacturers, including a trade group based in Newtown, Connecticut, scene of the December 14 school massacre, say the rule is burdensome and violates federal law.
It requires stores in the four U.S. states bordering Mexico to send a notice to federal law enforcement whenever someone buys two or more of rifles during any five-day period.
The measure applies only to high-caliber, semi-automatic rifles that can use a detachable magazine.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which regulates gun sales, adopted the rule in 2011 amid rising cartel violence and at the urging of gun control groups for President Barack Obama to act.
Thousands of firearms are thought to cross the border illegally into Mexico each year, and semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines are a favorite of drug traffickers, the ATF said in a report last year.
Mexican authorities recovered more than 68,000 U.S.-sourced guns from 2007 to 2011, the ATF said.
The rule applies to retailers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas who, perhaps without realizing it, could be sources for those firearms.
Gun stores “have to create a new system to keep track of that,” Richard Gardiner, a lawyer for retailers Foothills Firearms LLC and J&G Sales Ltd, told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Federal law does not allow law enforcement to require that system, he said, calling it burdensome because store workers do not always know which of the guns they sell are covered.
COURT DOUBTS BURDEN
The court’s three judges, though, repeatedly doubted whether the rule creates much additional work.
“I don’t remember the record containing any evidence of confusion,” said Judge Harry Edwards.
ATF has a special phone number for retailers to call if they have questions, such as whether the rule covers a particular rifle, but few people have called, government lawyer Michael Raab told the court.
“Any dealer worth his salt” should know whether most guns he sells fit the criteria, Raab said, echoing the wording of a lower court judge.
Gardiner responded that evidence of the rule’s burden is unnecessary because it is a government overreach.
The court is expected to decide within the next few months.
Gun rights advocates have also argued that the ATF measure could lead to a federal database of guns, which they fear would infringe on their rights. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have tried to cut off money to enforce the regulation.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade group for gunmakers and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, is based in Newtown, where gunman Adam Lanza killed his mother, 20 children and six school employees before shooting himself in one of the worst U.S. school shootings.
Lower court judges in Texas and Washington have upheld the ATF rule, which is an example of steps Obama can take outside the proposed gun control laws he is expected to send to Congress this month.
The case is National Shooting Sports Foundation Inc, et al, v. B. Todd Jones, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, No. 12-5009.
