Can Barack Obama Ban Guns By Executive Order?

- Tim Brown

This week Vice President Joe Biden alluded to Barack Obama possibly using executive order to impose gun control. Biden said this during a meeting surrounded by several gun control groups and gun violence victims. The question on many people’s minds is, “Can this actually happen?”

First, let’s understand what an executive order actually is. It is supposed to be an order delivered by the President to those under his authority, sort of like the CEO of a company giving direction to those under him. According to the National Archives:

Executive orders are official documents, numbered consecutively, through which the President of the United States manages the operations of the Federal Government.

The text of Executive orders appears in the daily Federal Register as each Executive order is signed by the President and received by the Office of the Federal Register. The text of Executive orders beginning with Executive Order 7316 of March 13, 1936, also appears in the sequential editions of Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

Robert Longley at About.com also confirms this is how executive orders work and adds, “While they do bypass the U.S. Congress and the standard legislative law making process, no part of an executive order may direct the agencies to conduct illegal or unconstitutional activities.

Executive orders are not to be used to bypass the legislative branch, but they are to be used simply under the executive branch. In other words they can be used to direct executive agencies on implementing Congressional approved legislation. Typically these are used for the purpose of:

1. Operational management of the executive branch
2. Operational management of federal agencies or officials
3. To carry out statutory or constitutional presidential responsibilities

At least that is what they are supposed to be used for. The Constitutional authority for presidential executive orders are normally cited to be found in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which reads, “The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America,” and Article II, Section 3 which states, “The President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed…”

So there is authority granted to the President and that has been recognized even by our first President, George Washington, who signed his first executive order in 1789. He was not alone. Many of the founders, who became President, such as John Adams, James Madison, and James Monroe issued one executive order each. While President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued 3,522!

So the question we have to deal with is “Is it possible that Barack Obama could sign an executive order to impose gun control?” The answer is, “Yes, it is possible he could sign such an executive order.” The issue though, is whether or not such an executive order would be lawful and upheld by the Congress or the Supreme Court. Congress may pass a law that alters an executive order, and they can be declared unconstitutional and vacated by the Supreme Court. A recent Congressional response to an executive order can be found here.

For more of the article go to: http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/01/can-barack-obama-ban-guns-with-executive-order/

BIDEN: OBAMA WILL BYPASS CONGRESS FOR GUN CONTROL

Vice President Joe Biden, who has been charged by President Obama with running the task force to prevent situations like the Sandy Hook massacre, announced that he wouldn’t be raising legislative solutions at all.

Instead, he said that President Obama might simply declare his preferred gun policy the law of the nation.

Talking to the drooling press, Biden announced, “The president is going to act. There are executive 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.”

Biden stated, “As the president said, if your actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking. But I’m convinced we can affect the well-being of millions of Americans and take thousands of people out of harm’s way if we act responsibly.”

Executive orders have long been a staple of American governance – but not for use in crafting completely new policy. The Constitution merely talks of “executive power” and states that the executive branch shall “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Major actions, up to and including war, have been conducted through executive order – but not without an authorization from Congress, even if that authorization was not an out-and-out declaration of war.

For original article go to: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/09/Biden-Obama-Will-Bypass-Congress-for-Gun-Control

REVIVED! STATE LAW BANISHING D.C. GUN RULES

Arguments scheduled in 9th Circuit on Montana's 'freedom act'
- Bob Unruh, WND

Just as the rhetoric in Washington on guns has hit a zenith – with Joe Biden promising executive orders to try to prevent the hardware from doing damage – a court order has revived a stunning plan adopted by several states that tells Washington, regarding many guns, to just go away.

Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, confirmed that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments in the MSSA v. Holder case for March 4 in Portland, Ore. He is the only individual who is a plaintiff in the case

The challenge to Washington’s death-grip on gun rules across the nation has been stalled at the appellate level for nearly two years, but a ruling from the notoriously and often-overturned court bench is needed for the plaintiffs to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, where they want to finish their fight.

“You probably know that I wrote the Montana Firearms Freedom Act to mount a challenge to federal ‘Commerce Clause’ power, using firearms as the vehicle for the exercise,” Marbut said in his announcement about the sudden movement in the case.

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“The MFFA declares that any firearms made and retained in Montana are simply not subject to any federal authority under the power given to Congress in the Constitution to ‘regulate commerce … among the states.”

The case was brought on Oct. 9, 2009, when the MFFA went into effect, and Marbut explains, “We need to get to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to overturn a century of bad Commerce Clause precedent.”

He noted the contributions of the Second Amendment Foundation, and Missoula attorney Quentin Rhoades on the case.

Officials who have worked on the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, which simply declares that guns made, sold and kept in the state of Montana are exempt from federal limits and requirements, also prompted similar legislation in seven other states.

Among those are Tennessee (SB1610); Utah (SB11); Wyoming (HB95); South Dakota (SB89); Arizona (HB2307); Idaho (HB589); and Alaska (HB1860). Representing a consensus among the states on the limits of federal power, additional copies of the MFFA were also introduced in the legislatures of 23 other states, for a total of 31 jurisdictions where it has been enacted or introduced.

Those laws are on hold pending the outcome of Montana’s court challenge.

A federal judge in Montana determined that the state could not do what it wanted.

When South Dakota’s law was signed by Gov. Mike Rounds, a commentator said it addresses the “rights of states which have been carelessly trampled by the federal government for decades.”

WND reported when Wyoming joined the states with self-declared exemptions from federal gun regulation, officials there took the unusual step of including penalties for any agent of the U.S. who “enforces or attempts to enforce” federal gun rules on a “personal firearm.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/revived-state-law-banishing-d-c-gun-rules/#qkyKtrifiXEreJQC.99

Second Amendment Foundation

The Tenth Amendment Center

TED NUGENT UNLOADS: GUN OWNERS THE NEXT ROSA PARKS

Rocker warns 'we will sit down on the front seat of the bus'

- Michael Thompson

“There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.”

That was the response of Ted Nugent, rock legend and long-time defender of the Second Amendment, when asked what he would do should the government decide to go forward with any of the many firearms-confiscation plans now being developed.

In an exclusive interview with WND, Nugent, who said last year that if Barack Obama is re-elected he would “either be dead or in jail by this time next year,” unloaded on the recent news that Obama is considering an executive order to deal with guns.

The Weekly Standard reported Vice President Joe Biden revealed that President Obama might use an executive order to deal with guns.

“The president is going to act,” Biden told reporters before a meeting with victims of gun violence. “There are executive 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.”

Biden called it a moral issue and said “it’s critically important that we act.”

But Nugent believes the administration would have difficulty carrying out a plan to confiscate weapons.

“If it comes to the actual implementation of an actual confiscatory directive from our president, then I do believe that the heroes of the law enforcement will defy this order,” he said. “I do believe that there are enough soulless sheep within our government who would act on such an illegal order, but I believe the powers that be at the local, state and regional law enforcement would halt such an illegal, anti-American order.’

Nugent continued: “You are talking to a guy who talks to more gun owners in more heated and concerned conversations than anyone who lives. These are top notch heroes of law enforcement and military who understand this experiment in self-government and we will not let [gun confiscation] happen; we will do it peaceful.

“But there will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.”

Nugent is a long-time champion and outspoken defender of the Constitution and Second Amendment. He told WND the media narrative since the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn., has been shameful.

“The shock and dismay and heartbreak, then just the specific gun issue, but there is a subculture, dare I say subhuman culture, infesting our government and society that would zone in on hardware and inanimate objects instead of people’s conduct and the justice systems failure,” he said.

He hammered the Obama administration for going after the constitutional right to bear arms.

“The media and the government is hell-bent on convincing that water is dry and we should all reconsider our conclusions about the dampness of H20,” he said. “These people are out of their cotton-picking minds, and they scare Americans who are committed to logic, truth and common-sense, and real solutions instead of the insanity that I witness from our government and media.

“If you were attempting to write an offensive script to a new ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie, I couldn’t come up with a dumber and [more] unbelievable insanity than our government and our media is perpetrating on the American public,” Nugent said.

Original article here: http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/ted-nugent-gun-owners-the-next-rosa-parks/#M6updyfMFwhGFLTh.99