The modest gun control policy changes announced in a passionate speech by President Obama on Tuesday are not of great substantive importance. But they reveal important truths about the state of American politics. The disproportionate Republican opposition to the president’s minor executive actions on gun control isn’t just about the party’s opposition to any and all efforts to stem the tide of gun violence. Their reflexive opposition also reflects their refusal to cede any legitimate authority to the president.
After all, the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination didn’t even know what executive actions – if any – Barack Obama would take on gun control after his Monday meeting with the attorney general, Loretta Lynch. That didn’t stop them, because they knew that they would oppose whatever actions Obama planned to take.
It’s called “adversarial politics” and it’s the way the system works. The opposition is supposed to, erm, oppose?
They’d hardly have been prepared for Barry to say ‘We need harsher sentences and mental health policies that don’t prioritise the ‘rights’ of the mentally ill over the normal population, and more open carry’ now, would they?
Whatever this charlatan proposed would be a disaster.
It is also called experience. Everyone knows by now that whatever Barry does, it is about Barry. All he is interested in is the transition to a Mandela-style Living Legend and the Day Time Movie Rights to his story.
So everything else is reduced to background for His Story.
And, it has to be said, it’s not as if the Democrats have a record of imposing blatantly un-constitutional (if they were done at the Federal level) firearms “regulations” and making people drag challenges through the courts against state-funded lawyers.
Shocking I know, country in which legislative changes are supposed to be voted on in an assembly objects to President trying to de facto change the laws himself!
I’m sure all the same people will rediscover the benefits of the US Constitution once there’s a Republican president….
But they reveal important truths about the state of American politics.
Don’t they just!
Obama needs to be impeached and hanged.
They killed Kennedy–why have they let that prick live?
Hopefully his EO will be stuffed up his arse by the courts. He has left it a little late for this gun-control shite. It seems more like a tactic to cause Killery the max trouble if the bitch gets in.
Phoniest tears ever!
The republicans also want to stem gun violence. They have different ways to do it, ways that seem to work rather better then what onion tears proposes.
Given that ALL restrictions on the right to bear arms are blatantly unconstitutional it’s reasonable to oppose them without knowing what they are. Unless “shall not be infringed” has some other meaning I’m not aware of.
“They killed Kennedy–why have they let that prick live?”
Which “they”?
‘opposition to any and all efforts to stem the tide of gun violence.’
Tide? The “tide” has been going out for years, thanks in part to Mr. Obama’s stimulating the sale of 50,000,000 new guns.
Dumbass Guardian thinks Obama’s actions are actually about ‘gun violence,’ and not harassing the citizenry.
In a country with 150,000,000 guns, “gun control” is loony on its face: any adult who is not locked up can get a gun. Period. There is no possible law that can prevent it.
Dearime: “Which “they”?”
Who cares? Anybody –up to and including the Women’s Institute who’d help put the bastard down.
The right to bear arms is not the same as the right to buy arms. Insisting on background checks (criminality, mental health, etc,) and a delayed delivery of purchase are things that I would support if I was American.
‘The right to bear arms is not the same as the right to buy arms.’
Yes it is. The courts have so ruled.
Background checks and a delayed delivery of purchase are just harassment.
“The right to bear arms is not the same as the right to buy arms. Insisting on background checks (criminality, mental health, etc,) and a delayed delivery of purchase are things that I would support if I was American.”
Which is why several members of the religion of peace could walk about in Paris twice last year wielding ak47s and all the people could do was either get gunned down or film with their mobile phones, both great deterrents.
Or even more shamefully, run like rabbits/sheep/gutless dickheads the next day when a light bulb exploded where they were all gathered with their candles.
“they knew that they would oppose whatever actions Obama planned to take”
Well yes, because it was executive action. The constitution is important, and stopping the President abusing his position is important, whatever the subject is.
Is issuing executive orders unconstitutional? In that case, Obama is the least unconstitutional president since McKinley.
SJW – from what I understand of Yankee constitutional law, in broad terms, executive orders are fine so long as they only affect Federal employees, but are unconstitutional if they affect the general public.
So it very much depends on what the orders are. But since Obama was aiming to reduce gun ownership by the general public, his are going to be of the second sort.
SJW, the president can issue executive orders concerning the administration of laws passed by congress. This FG thinks he can make law with executive orders.
What I would like to see in an opposition party is an idea to make things better. The constant whining of the party of no tends to drown out any substantial arguments they make. Other than gun control what can we do to reduce the number of mass shootings?
Arming everyone doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t feel I have the training to successfully take out the bad guys My biggest concerns are that I would shoot the wrong person or get shot by the cops just for having a gun in my hand.
Personally I like the idea of having a background check for a gun just as much as I would like one for buying a hammer. Both are potentially deadly just having a different range. I understand that a waiting period does eliminate many shootings. It would be nice to live in a world where, to paraphrase Chris Rock, ignorant [insert slur] aren’t gonna mess things up but until that day it’s best to try to keep our deadliest tools out of the hands of the bad guys.
Doesn’t much matter. As mass murders in America have shown, the bad guy rarely go where the good guys might have guns. Just knowing someone might have one is usually enough to make them look for an easier target.
Then you should get better cops. Last I looked, American cops were far more likely to shoot the wrong person than an armed bystander was.
And this is a relatively recent phenomenon, probably due to the militarization of policing over the last few decades. If you go back to the Austin shooter in the 50s (or was it 60s?), the first responders were multiple hunters with rifles in their pickup trucks, and the cops managed not to shoot any of them. They also deputized one and took him with them to catch the guy.
And, in the UK, if you read reports of shooting incidents in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, you often find that armed citizens lent their guns to the police, or helped them catch the bad guys.
“Arming everyone doesn’t make sense to me”
There is quite a lot of evidence that where concealed/open carry is permitted, crime is down. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. A bully is a bully until there is a bigger bully or someone is ready to take him on. Perfectly normal behaviour.
Lest one forget, crime overall is down in the US over the last 10/15 years. Not something you hear very often.
Is issuing executive orders unconstitutional? In that case, Obama is the least unconstitutional president since McKinley.
Oh yes, this old trick. Ignore the content of the executive orders and concentrate only on the quantity.
“Their reflexive opposition also reflects their refusal to cede any legitimate authority to the president.”
Perhaps because they have all themselves won election to Congress, all have a personal democratic mandate which, quite rightly, they guard jealously.
SJW
“Is issuing executive orders unconstitutional? In that case, Obama is the least unconstitutional president since McKinley.”
So, to be clear, you are most definitely NOT arguing that Obama is himself behaving constitutionally. Good. I look forward to your next comment condemning his unconstitutional behaviour. Good to have you on board.
If the “if…then…” construction is beyond you then this sentence won’t help you.
Here‘s what Obama actually proposes to do. It doesn’t seem to me to trample roughshod over the right of American citizens to be shot by nutters with guns.
SJW: It certainly doesn’t when the nutters are cops, FBI or other members of the Federal tyranny’s alphabet thugscrum.
No, the construction doesn’t pass me by, any more than does a specious ‘wadabout’ argument.
To follow your logic
‘If’: is this unconstitutional?
‘Then’: that makes him historically less unconstitutional than others…so it’s fine and stop criticising.
How about, ‘if’: then it’s wrong regardless of what somebody else did some other time
‘if not’ then your argument has no application to this discussion.
To avoid it being overturned by the courts, a Presidential Executive Order has to state the law or constitutional cluse that gives the President the authority to perform the action. Otherwise, the President has no authority to perform the action and the courts will throw it out, as many were before the 1920s when they often didn’t explicitly state their enabling authority.