Vice-President Joe Biden’s gun panel is set to report to President Barack Obama next Tuesday. The common view is that any legislation that is at all controversial would have a difficult time getting passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Now, Biden has raised the possibility of getting gun control measures by executive order.
My advice for the president as someone who reads polls: go for it, if it’s what you want to do. [cont.]
Harry Enten, The Guardian
Recent polls: Guns
The president is being advised by the usual “experts” (people from other countries who know nothing of our Constitution or laws for instance) to “go for it”.
The President cannot use Executive Order to write law. He can only use it to enact portions of existing law. We have a Constitutional Republic, not a populist monarchy where 51% of the people can vote to do what the hell they want to the other 49%. This is the nature of checks and balances, it protects the unalienable rights of the people.
While there have always been strong enclaves of people who want gun control in the populous eastern and western coastal cities, the notion is not popular in the rest of the country. Despite the self centered arrogance of the people who live in these coastal cities, they do not rule the rest of the nation by majority decree. There are limits on the authority of the president and they have served us very well in the past.
Emotional appeals and attempts to manipulate tragedies won’t change that. Claiming that “it’s a new day” is an often used canard to attempt to throw down the rules to allow people to bypass them and get what they want. Sorry but punishing tens of millions of law abiding citizens on the off chance that it might perhaps one day save someones life is an absurd notion with no basis in fact or reality. It is merely a cheap shot at the presidents political opposition, and a vile attempt to scapegoat them while avoiding entirely the problem.
I cannot help but note that the notion to put armed guards in schools as advanced by the NRA was shouted down by the same people who applauded it when it was advanced by President Clinton. Hypocrisy at its finest.