In looking over the fact sheet the White House provided to explain their executive actions on guns, I don’t see a whole lot for anyone to complain about, unless they feel that they didn’t go far enough.
One part is totally useless, as asking this Congress to give more money to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is like asking them to declare Ronald Reagan an enemy of the people.
Much of the rest is focused on increasing the effectiveness of the already existing National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Going to a 24/7 system will help avoid the current problem they have where they get requests for 63,000 background checks a day and have only three days to complete a check before a gun sale can take place without one. This falls into the category of “enforcing the gun laws that are already on the books” that the Republicans are always chanting like a mantra.
There’s a bit of a change in that the government will now be looking to eliminate a loophole that people exploit to buy machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. You won’t be able to buy ordinarily prohibited weapons anymore simply by creating trusts, corporations, or other legal entities to serve as phony middlemen.
If you’re looking to buy or sell guns without any oversight, these executive actions may impact you, but all they’re really looking to accomplish is for as many gun sales as possible to be run through the NICS background check system.
There’s a mental illness component which could concern some folks because it butts up against medical privacy issues. The biggest change is that the Social Security Administration will feed information into the background check system about people who receive SSA benefits for mental illness, particularly if the illness is severe enough that the beneficiary cannot handle their own account. The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) has also issued a rule that makes it clear that states can report on mentally ill people without running afoul of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). I’m not saying this isn’t problematic, as some people may avoid seeking help for mental problems to avoid losing their 2nd Amendment rights. Overall, though, most of the sensational mass shootings in recent years have been carried out by severely disturbed individuals like Jared Lee Loughner in Arizona, James Holmes in Colorado, and Adam Lanza in Sandy Hook.
What’s probably most threatening to gun rights absolutists is the last part which is related to smart gun technology.
As the single largest purchaser of firearms in the country, the Federal Government has a unique opportunity to advance this research and ensure that smart gun technology becomes a reality—and it is possible to do so in a way that makes the public safer and is consistent with the Second Amendment. Today, the President is taking action to further this work in the following way:
Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security to take two important steps to promote smart gun technology.
Increase research and development efforts. The Presidential Memorandum directs the departments to conduct or sponsor research into gun safety technology that would reduce the frequency of accidental discharge or unauthorized use of firearms, and improve the tracing of lost or stolen guns. Within 90 days, these agencies must prepare a report outlining a research-and-development strategy designed to expedite the real-world deployment of such technology for use in practice.
Promote the use and acquisition of new technology. The Presidential Memorandum also directs the departments to review the availability of smart gun technology on a regular basis, and to explore potential ways to further its use and development to more broadly improve gun safety. In connection with these efforts, the departments will consult with other agencies that acquire firearms and take appropriate steps to consider whether including such technology in specifications for acquisition of firearms would be consistent with operational needs.
Preparing reports and conducting periodic reviews? It’s not much, really, but it would be significant if the government moved to smart gun technology. After all, we’ve all seen how a 2002 smart gun law in New Jersey has made the gun nuts go crazy and had the inadvertent effect of keeping smart guns off the market. Once smart guns get a foothold, it could be game over for the old way of shooting and killing people.
That would a positive legacy from these executive actions, but it’s mainly hypothetical right now. There’s no constitutional overreach in any of these proposals or actions.
But, that’s not how they’re being greeted by the Republicans, is it?
I really don’t think there’s any constitutional question here–the changes are in the enforcement of existing laws that seem pitched directly at the restrictions that the SCOTUS outlined as legitimate in Heller. My actual question would be to what extent the Administration is using its executive powers in an acceptable way. My knee jerks strongly towards this being fine, based on what I understand to be the scope of executive power and by the informal, “How badly would I freak out if Pres. Cruz took comparable executive actions?” test. Still, I’d like to hear more about this, and expect that I will over the course of the inevitable court challenges.
I suspect that I am well to the right of the median Booman Tribune commentator on gun control issues, but strengthening and tightening the background check process seems to be the most defensible sort of policy change along pretty much any axis. It’s politically popular, even among gun owners, serves a clear state interest, preserves the Second Amendment rights of existing law-abiding and responsible gun owners, doesn’t seem to raise any due process questions. Additionally, it will probably be somewhat helpful in cutting down on both spree shootings and more traditional gun crime.
But, that’s not how they’re being greeted by the Republicans, is it?
Of course not.
Can Congress’ departmental budget oversight screw with the “conduct or sponsor research” portion of this memorandum or since the omnibus budget passed, Congress lost its chance?
Overall, though, most of the sensational mass shootings in recent years have been carried out by severely disturbed individuals like Jared Lee Loughner in Arizona, James Holmes in Colorado, and Adam Lanza in Sandy Hook.
This is true, but nothing in the new executive action would have kept guns out the hands of these three killers. Lanza’s mother legally purchased the arsenal he used. Loughner was never under the care of any mental health professional. Holmes was seen by three mental health professionals and recognized as potentially homicidal by at least one of them but not enough so that any preventative action was taken. A 72 hour hold might have changed the course of Holmes’ life, but only if he cooperated and/or family members had somehow been informed of his mental health decline and found some way to become involved in his care.
We also have to recognize that only a small number of those that suffer mental health issues ever become homicidal. Thus, over-reporting by mental health professionals has always been a risk and law enforcement is not equipped to handle large numbers of false positives.
The rightwing shut down the one professional intervention that could have made a difference in one of these cases: pediatricians speaking to parents about guns in the home. Unlike Loughner and Holmes, Lanza was never psychologically well functioning. The last thing that should have been in that home were guns. (Sure, knives and baseball bats can also be used as weapons, but that could never have led to the murder of 20 little kids and six teachers/school employees.)
We might be going about this the wrong way.
True, but a more efficient background check system might well have kept a gun out of Dylann Roof’s hands.
That being said, the intense focus on spree shootings is just not a good idea from any perspective. They’re a small component of overall gun crime (let alone overall violent crime) and really nothing about them is typical. Even if we were able to somehow prevent all of them, we might knock down the homicide rate by 1%.
You also see this with the rhetoric around mental health, because mental health really is implicated in a substantial majority of firearm-related deaths, which are suicides. You’re absolutely right that public health intervention is a much better way to approach this, and the NRA generally wants to put the kibosh on it because stoking paranoid fantasies about the government is such a good fundraising tool for them.
a more efficient background check system might well have kept a gun out of Dylann Roof’s hands.
A more efficient system wouldn’t have made an error in entering his misdemeanor drug charge as a felony. Had both worked properly, he would still have been able to legally purchase the gun.
I’m at a total loss about why the NRA (or anyone for that matter) is against smart gun technology.
Does anyone have a (non-snark, please) answer?
Because any gun control legislation means the unqualified Right to Keep and Bear Arms has been breached and is the first step down the slippery slope to the total ban of private ownership of guns.
That sounds like snark but it isn’t.
It’s not only that. They also actually believe (by and large) that private ownership is a matter of basic civil liberties, and react to proposed restrictions in that light. Once you start viewing things in that light, gun control laws, even ones that are modest, start becoming things you oppose in their own right, even if there isn’t a clear slippery slope.
Too bad the five conservative justices who voted to overturn the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns in the home disagree with your comment, in the Heller case;
to wit
laws imposing conditions on the commercial sale of arms.
The five conservative members of the US Supreme has basically said the laws the NRA soooo fears are constitutional.
How ’bout that.
The main reason is that they’re afraid it will open the door to laws that require smart gun technology, and said technology may be unreliable and/or expensive, which will place a burden on their membership.
That too.
If I’m in a gun battle, I want to be able to grab a gun and shoot. If I lose my designated weapon, smart gun tech might leave me defenseless. On a more likely level what if my friend has a cool gun I want to try shooting?
Obama’s actions are modest, reasonable, good policy, and I think just cost us any chance of re-taking the Senate. It certainly put paid to the small hope of unseating my Tea-Bagging lunatic Congresscritter.
Watch this video. Out of control cops are as much or more of a threat that all the crazy civilians carrying guns because they can get away with things like this:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/cop-savagely-beats-hawaiian-man-after-he-performs-native-healing-pra
yer-near-seal-on-the-beach/
Notice the girl crying at the end of the video. Cops often kill (execute) people for this kind of non-compliance.
As gun grabbers such as myself well recognize, we (or rather anyone trying to restrict guns) should also support taking away cops’ guns. Not that this will fly with the general populace, at least not yet (maybe never), but we exist lol.
I support some restrictions there but Britain’s no gun cops are not the norm in Europe.
There is a certain type of individual who above all else craves respect maybe because they cannot get it elsewhere in their lives. Then they become cops, trained to gain compliance above all else even when it has nothing to do with anyone breaking the law. Then they start making up the law, complete with punishment to go along with it. This kind of person is dangerous and will become even more dangerous the longer he/she is on the job. More important than taking this person’s gun away is taking this person’s badge away and I mean forever. It takes a special person to be a cop. Clearly this cop has not made the cut to be that special person.
All his supervisor could do was to move him to another patrol. Truly disgusting.
Excessive force needs to be a career ender, for the cops who do it, for the other cops who lie to cover it up and for the supervisors and the prosecutors who let them all get away with it. POTUS is in charge of the Justice Department and I see very little to nothing done to address this very serious problem. Obama’s too little too late gun control measures will not make us safer from the cops, something we could actually do something about. Have we completely forgotten about civil rights?
ABC News
So he shot the girls because they shot down his advances? Thats what I’m getting from your excerpt.
Reported that she was shot while driving by the killer who was in another vehicle.
Got no complaints really.
I was skeptical regarding the HHS rule trumping HIPAA but there is a provision in HIPAA for psychotherapy exceptions under a “duty to warn” which I expect is being invoked in this case…if anyone was interested.
Nothing like a little confiscation scare to boost gun sales.