Obama Considering Executive Order for Gun Control
Vice President Joe Biden surprised many by suggesting the President would see his preferences for gun control made law through an executive order.
Biden said…
“The President is going to act. Executive orders, executive action can be taken we haven't decide what that is yet, but we are complying a law with the help of the AttorneyGeneral and all of the rest of the Cabinet members all well as legislative actions we believe is required.”
The outcry started almost immediately. Why is it that Obama chooses to go around Congress and make his wishes law by edict?
Doesn't it seem like the President overrides our elected representatives way too often?
In truth, Barack Obama isn't the biggest issuer of executive orders.
Take a look at this list of executive orders:
President Obama has 147.
George W. Bush, 291 and Bill Clinton, 364.
Granted- those were over the course of two terms.
George H.W. Bush had 166, and Ronald Reagan, 381- again over eight years.
Reagan takes the prize in recent presidential history but if you go back further, the biggest order of executive orders was
Harry Truman, who between 1945 and 1953, issued 896 executive orders.
Truman was successfully challenged. However, when he placed all steel mills in the country under federal control... because he failed to act to further a law Congress had already passed and instead instituted his own policy.
The Supreme Court invalidated his move, and, that's what's so concerning about the idea of the President making law about guns and gun ownership.
We know Obama has never been a fan of guns. Remember, his statement about people who "cling to their guns and religion"? It wasn't a compliment, it was an insult.
The idea that the President would carve back freedoms set aside in the constitution is ridiculous.
Any re-consideration of gun laws that would impact the nearly 80 million gun owners in this country should occur with all of our elected representatives, not just one.
The nation elected Barack Obama as President not King or Czar.
Let's do things the old fashioned way. Democratically.