Obama: You Know, Hillary Might Have A Point. Perhaps I Should FULLY Embrace My Inner Tyrant And Unilaterally Enact Gun Control Measures Congress Won't Pass.

Alternate title: The greatest spokesman the gun manufacturing industry ever had set to strike again.

In response to the latest mass shooting during his presidency, President Obama is seriously considering circumventing Congress with his executive authority and imposing new background-check requirements for buyers who purchase weapons from high-volume gun dealers.

Under the proposed rule change, dealers who exceed a certain number of sales each year would be required to obtain a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and perform background checks on potential buyers.

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The proposed executive action aims to impose background checks on individuals who buy from dealers who sell a significant number of guns each year. The current federal statute dictates that those who are “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms need to obtain a federal license — and, therefore, conduct background checks — but exempts anyone “who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.”

White House officials drafted the proposal in late 2013 to apply to those dealers who sell at least 50 guns annually, after Congress had rejected legislation that would have expanded background checks more broadly to private sellers. While the White House Office of Legal Counsel and then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. initially concluded the regulation was legally defensible, according to several individuals involved in the discussions, some federal lawyers remained concerned that setting an arbitrary numerical threshold could leave the rule vulnerable to a challenge.

Lot of things to unpack here.

First of all, this is all because Hillary announced a plan to do this if elected and now Obama has been embarrassed in front of his gun grabber friends. So like a petulant child he's going to do what he previously rejected because he can't be seen as anything less than the Hero of the Left Remaking America in Fundamental Ways.

Beyond that, how would this work? According to the story the idea is there are supposedly people selling a bunch of guns without a dealer's license even though they are really dealers. This enables the purchasers not to undergo background checks. Here's the thing. If you want to buy a gun from a guy who put a poster up at your local range, how do you know how many other guns he's sold in the year? If you buy gun number 51 and don't submit to a background check, what kind of legal jeopardy are you in? What kind of records would anyone who sells even a single gun have to keep to prove they aren't dealers (because you know the burden of proof would be to prove you aren't a dealer not for the government to prove you are)?

Now they will say this is simply focused on the "dealer", not a good old solid America who just wants to hunt (the only reason to own a gun the left pretends to agree with). Well, there's already a law for that, the Gun Control Act of 1968. The definition of who needs a dealer's liscense is a bit vague.

The term “dealer” means (A) any person engaged in the business of selling firearms at wholesale or retail, (B) any person engaged in the business of repairing firearms or of making or fitting special barrels, stocks, or trigger mechanisms to firearms, or (C) any person who is a pawnbroker. The term “licensed dealer” means any dealer who is licensed under the provisions of this chapter.

When does a hobby or occasional sale from your collection become a business?

Here's the thing,, this definition is almost 50 years old. The idea that's it's suddenly too vague and unenforceable is laughable. It's simply a power grab by the left to write an arbitrary number into it.

Something to consider...Obama and Clinton say this about mass shootings. Ok, then before we let you get away with this, which mass shooting would this provision have stopped?

I'll wait.....

Waiting.....

Still waiting.....

Yeah.

"But! But!" they'll stammer, "this is really about stopping inner city shootings!" The idea being gun bans in places like Chicago, New York City, D.C., etc. don't work because traffickers go to places with "lax" gun laws and then sell them in those urban paradises causing havoc like the snake in the Garden of Eden.

Here's the thing with that...this type of regulation will do NOTHING to stop that. The scenario the left loves to trot out to explain away their urban governance failures is already illegal. If you drive across state lines to buy a bunch of guns and already have a distribution deal set up with gangs back home, you are already breaking many, many federal laws (straw purchases and selling to be known not to be legally able to purchase and own a weapon come to mind). Felonies the lot of them. But this unrelated regulation will totally deal with the social decay of inner cities. Uh-huh.

The idea that someone who was regularly selling to criminals will suddenly be moved to file paper work on these transactions is laughable. Of course, none of this is about that activity. It's about making it harder for law abiding citizens, the people who will follow any new "law", to enjoy their constitutional right to bear arms.

Keep in mind the people pushing this nonsense are the same ones who think requiring ID to vote is an illegal and often insurmountable hurdle.

One last note...you might be able to make a case that a numerical distinction between occasional seller and professional dealer makes sense. That's what elected legislatures exist for. The casualness with which media types like this WaPo reporter simply writes, "President Obama is seriously considering circumventing Congress", is breathtaking. Reasonable people can agree or disagree about the need for establishing a hard figure and what the figure should be but the idea that after Congress rejected the notion the executive can simply come in impose it? That's why we have a 2nd Amendment to begin with.

Oh and something to note in the fight for the House Speaker race....which candidates have plans to fight against not just this usurper but the next one in case Hillary or Biden wins next year. My guess is none of them have any clue how to do it or the stomach to even try. So at least we have that going for us.

posted by DrewM. at 10:00 AM

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