Does your son or daughter suddenly want a gun license? Thank the President - image from Women of Caliber - a word press blog
The President’s plan to create “new” gun control measures is not going over well outside the confines of the Press – States already have, or are in the process of drafting legislation to ban the Presidents gun ban. The first was Wyoming, which legislation states a 2 year prison term for federal agencies attempting to enforce gun bans in Wyoming. Wyoming soon had company, and an odd mix at that - Mississippi, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky and Oregon. One might suggest that the south and the west are so wedded to their guns, that it makes sense, but Oregon, that’s the “left” coast, why would anyone there, or in say, Massachusetts, take umbrage with the President’s plan to bypass Congress and institute gun safety measures as if there were no Constitution? Simply put, any measures that would refer to the Constitution, and changing the laws of the land based on the same, are the purview of the Congress, not the Executive branch.
President Obama has issues 146 executive orders since taking office in 2009 – the list is available at www.federalregister.gov/executiveorders The 23 regarding gun control (and any others) are not yet listed, the orders purportedly include the following (without annotations) from The Lid (A Yid with a Lid)
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary EMBARGOED UNTIL THE START OF THE PRESIDENT’S REMARKS January 16, 2013
Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions Today, the President is announcing that he and the Administration will:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system. 2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system. 3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system. 4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks. 5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun. 6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers. 7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign. 8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission). 9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. 10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement. 11. Nominate an ATF director. 12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations. 13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime. 14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. 15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies 16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes. 17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities. 18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers. 19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education. 20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover. 21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges. 22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations. 23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
On the face of it, there does not seem to be a lot new here, as states that offer hand gun permits (as opposed to hunting (long-guns) permits, already do background checks through FBI databases on those applying for a handgun permit. One is fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed. (This is the Massachusetts model). The tie in to mental health should be the priority and nice to see that it’s on the list, but, the problem is not being addressed in total. Unless and until medications prescribed for those specific disorders that have been associated with massive shootings, the nation remains at risk. Any doctors’ office can prescribe a variety of medications for mental health issues, and when that happens there is no follow-up as to therapy or monitoring of the said problem. These types of medication (found in to be present in those shooting at schools, or for that matter, shoving people under trains in NYC), should be dispensed only under the supervision of a Psychiatrist, and only with ongoing therapy. This would, in essence, take the “surprise” out of that nice kid going on a shooting rampage, as his family practice prescribed meds, which make one either homicidal or suicidal, are under control.
Gun Control is popular in certain circles, yet mental health is apparently just another issue to be shoved under a rug. The list does include a few options, but those options are in the forms of “studies” – which will cost the taxpayer a pretty penny and do, in the end, nothing.
The President’s actions will do nothing to prevent violence, be it by gun, train, machete, or the kitchen knife.
What it does is set the tone for a President to sound a bit…imperial. This translates into “I’m taking everyone’s’ guns”. The hysteria results in the following:
60% of young people plan to buy a gunsuddenly – this from the Campus Reform Blog. The study is prompting fear from the left that the president needs to move more quickie (apparently he read the study), the 60% of high school and college students wanting guns, is perplexing to the left, especially when only 30% lived in households where there was gun ownership.
What this tells us is that those 60% are more afraid of the President and his ban on guns than they are of the actual gun. There is more than likely not a sudden group of hunters sprung forth from one generation, what the President has done – for mostly show and funds for his favorite departments he has scared the dickens out of both those who are conservative to the core, and the rest of the nation that wants to rush to get a gun before the President takes them away. No kidding, they are blaming him for trampling on their rights.
Why the executive orders, the pomp, the props (children), the political theater? There has to be something beneath the surface that is more important that the focus of the public is currently on guns.
One can surmise (given the history of this President and his Friday announcements), that the focus on guns and disarmament of legal gun owners (as opposed to criminals who can buy anything, including anti-aircraft , bunker busting weapons) means there’s something more beneath the surface.
It is not that individuals shouldn’t take umbrage with the President’s actions. For the most part, these executive orders require more spending and more government oversight. This President handles the Constitution just as Lincoln did – with no regard for the document (which is why they no longer teach real history to anyone – too much information that may allow “the masses” to figure, that maybe something a politician is doing, has been done, and that action did not turn out well).
Therefore, while the President is calling very well staged press conferences, and issuing orders that involve the Second Amendment, instead of getting rave reviews from the citizens (there will be the 36% identified as “Democrats”), he has received threats from States within the Union that they simply will not comply with Federal controls. He’s scared the bejesus out of the younger generation, those prior Obama voters, into getting guns (that should be teeing off a whole bunch of mothers) – the later is happening quietly with one little blip on that study. Texas is enjoying an influx of young, bright, and future gun toting residents. (Massachusetts and like states will be losing those bright young future gun toting residents, and those residents lured by jobs and no taxes.) Some of those may become historians and in the coming decades will write biographies regarding this President, possibly refuting his personal historians glowing review. (See James Carter).
The point it, that it is not about guns, it is about the government and the President (who is the face of the Government) controlling the population. That’s the crux of ht e matter. This President was fine when he was on the campaign trail promising to do away with student loans, or save birth control, (all nonsense) and those that jumped on the right to default from their loan obligations and to buy birth control at will, have found out he following: it was a campaign promise only. That’s the lesson of Youth: live and learn.
Out there, surely someone is picking up on this and thinking of the political potential – or as is the case in Washington both the GOP and the DNC are more concerned about holding onto their jobs than actually doing anything significant (like demand a budget, demand cuts prior to raising any debt ceiling, and demand so many that it won’t be necessary to raise the debt ceiling).
What we don’t know, is what is up the President’s sleeve, as we are distracted by the dog and pony show in those 23 Executive orders.
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