Someone asked if Obama had reached the limits of his legal authority...

M

mehavey

New member
The Wash Post posits...

"No."

"Obama is seriously considering circumventing Congress with his executive authority and ..."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...d45e56-6b63-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html

> In a meeting with Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett,
> Giffords and Kelly, who became gun-control activists after
> Giffords was seriously wounded in a mass shooting in 2011,
> were pushing for a regulatory change....

Congress has long since effectively ceded legislative authority to the executive
agencies -- (all of them) -- and now finds itself increasingly irrelevant. Such
circumstances are a gold mine to those who would exploit it.
 
18 U.S. Code § 921(a)(21) defines a dealer as,

a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such term shall not include a person 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;
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I'm not sure what sort of "regulatory" or "executive" action he could take on this. The executive branch doesn't have the power to change existing law.
 
On the other hand they successfully defended redefining the phrase "the states" to mean the federal government...

Defining "occasional" to mean more than one per year would do the trick.
 
These political 'experts' cannot seem to fathom that their creative laws would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the recent high profile mass killings.
 
These political 'experts' cannot seem to fathom that their creative laws would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the recent high profile mass killings.
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Is that really their goal? It seems their real goal is to make gun ownership so onerous that no one will want to deal with the hassle. The real goal is to discourage prospective gun owners by making the process so restrictive, expensive and complicated that people will simply give up. The best way to reduce the supply of guns is to simply eliminate the demand and I believe many of these laws are designed to do that.
 
I think the "crime" aspect is a smoke screen. These people are liberal elitists. They sit in their leather covered chairs and decide what is best for most as long as none of the rules apply to them. We are not equal citizens, we are hordes of cattle. They do not like these hordes of cattle owning firearms for any reason. They don't mind the people voting because we generally vote as instructed by the news media. If Donald Trump is on TV every night then he leads in the polls. If they blackball him and switch to Jeb Bush, then Jeb Bush becomes "the people's choice".
So getting suckered into arguing with them on the crime aspect is pointless. Face the reality- the don't want private gun ownership in any form.
And....just so I don't appear as a "gun nut" there are plenty of other attacks on the citizen. I dislike these administrative law courts- the deal is..."oh you want to sail a boat, hunt on public land, drive on a public street, work at a common job that now requires a license- well you DON"T HAVE TO DO ANY OF THESE THINGS- if you do- you must throw out your right to a jury trial and submit to an administrative law judge. My view is al these tings were essentially in existence prior to the Constitution, you ought to be able to have a trial by jury. Federal revenue sharing is another pet peeve. It gave the Federal Government control over the states. "Oh do don't have to do what we tell you but if you don't go along we will stop any federal dollars to your state"
I'd like to see our Senate go back to being selected by state legislatures.
We are regulating ourselves o death.
 
The ATF could simply write a regulation stating that one selling 50 guns per year is presumptively considered to be a dealer under 18 U.S. Code § 921(a)(21). That would shift the burden on a such a person to prove they were not one engaged in the "regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit" or meet the other exemptions. Since most people who transfer 50 guns or more per year probably are dealers, the regulation would likely be upheld.
 
As I've mentioned before, we are dangerously close to what the Founders were so desperate
to prevent...and Congress has been a willing enabler in ceding their authority to stop it.

Sir Thomas More:
What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper:
Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More:
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would
you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from
coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man
to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

No, Obama may not have the legal authority -- and the courts may overturn him -- but in the meantime
he has the enforcement authority. And the courts are exceedingly slow... and after the fact once done.
 
I'm unclear about what exactly is being proposed, other than maybe interepreting what it means to be a dealer. Unlike background checks and assault weapons bans, which are at least nominal attempts at addressing problems (albeit very misguided), I don't see where this is coming from at all. It seems like somebody just pours over 922 to look for things that can be redefined by the administration so they look like they're doing something.
 
I don't think anything concrete is being proposed yet. These are statements (and feelers) being put out to capitalize on the latest mass shooting. Those on one side of the gun fence think they can score political points against those on the other side. That doesn't mean they don't want to further impede gun sales and gun ownership. We all know that most of them would strip every gun from every individual if they could.
 
From what I hear Obama is looking very hard at mental deficiency confiscation.
 
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And the game is.... how is such "deficiency" adjudicated ?

- Accusation by anyone? (then guilty until proven innocent)
- Simple Administrative Fiat (similar to VA "we have determined" letters)
- "Special" Court? (and does accused have absolute right to attorney/public defender?)

And if found "deficient," how far into the family/residence/building/domicile (etc) does the prohibition extend?

Ahhhhh.......
Thomas More's Devil... in the details.
 
Why is Obama proposing the 50 gun limit?

Because he's desperate to be seen as "having done something" about guns and this fiddling with the regulations is what he can come up with without grossly exceeding his authority.

If they want everyone who sells 50 guns a year to have an FFL, fine. Just remember that this is at odds with the current trend to make it as difficult as possible to get an FFL, including the thoroughly outdated notion that you're going to be running a retail business out of your home.
 
I don't think 50 guns a year is an official number, that was just posited by KylJim above. It could be 5 or 50, or 12, or 2, or not be interpreted at all, no change in the regulation.

I think the mental deficiency angle is where the big changes are, look at how many thousands of veterans have been affected with the determination that a financial assistant means you're an unstable, crazed vet and cannot possess a firearm.
 
What is the source of this "50 gun limit"
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From the linked article in the original post:

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.
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Is anyone getting the feeling of being backed into a corner yet?
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Yes.

It would be nice if we could force Congress to pass a national budget that would only last one month at a time.

There wouldn't be time for debating silly issues.
 
If they can't already prosecute someone selling more than 50 guns a year for multiple years in a row for dealing without a license, the executive order isn't going to change anything. The only affect it will have is causing confusion and fear about large sales such as private liquidations andand estate sales where some collections approach or far surpass that number
 
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