President Joe Biden signed an executive order in Monterey Park, CA, today that promotes numerous anti-Second Amendment initiatives, many of which are effectively an end-run around Congress.
Ironically enough, the President started off his speech with this statement:
“My Administration has taken action to keep guns out of dangerous hands and especially dangerous weapons off of our streets; hold gun traffickers and rogue gun dealers accountable; fund accountable, effective community policing; and invest in community violence interventions and prevention strategies.”
Most of the statements will seem completely out of touch with reality to readers of this site, and for anyone who has been keeping an eye on the news.
Nevertheless, the President’s long list of new dictates strike at the heart of the Second Amendment.
He calls for banning “assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all gun sales, requiring safe storage of firearms…” and funding more anti-gun legislation. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it stems from the same liberal agendas that pushed gun control in countries like England and Australia, where firearms ownership is now almost solely the prerogative of criminals.
The executive order also calls for the Attorney General to impose ever stricter limitations on FFLs, the only legal conduit through which gun owners can obtain firearms. Those new restrictions include:
(i) clarify the definition of who is engaged in the business of dealing in firearms, and thus required to become Federal firearms licensees (FFLs), in order to increase compliance with the Federal background check requirement for firearm sales, including by considering a rulemaking, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law;
(ii) prevent former FFLs whose licenses have been revoked or surrendered from continuing to engage in the business of dealing in firearms;
(iii) publicly release, to the fullest extent permissible by law, inspection reports of FFL dealers cited for violations of the law; and
(iv) support efforts to modernize and make permanent the Undetectable Firearms Act (18 U.S.C. 922(p)).
Reading between the lines, it’s easy to infer that the President’s agenda is to put such legal pressure on FFLs, even for what might be a simple clerical error, that they are forced out of business, providing a convenient end-run around the Constitution through the administrative state to make firearms de facto unobtainable.
The executive order goes on to urge not only the Attorney General, but also the Department of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Surgeon General and even the Secretary of Education to implement “safe storage” programs and “red flag” laws. If that sounds like a strange cabal of Alphabet agencies to be enforcing gun laws, you would be correct in assuming your government is now weaponized against private firearm ownership.
We now know that “safe storage” programs are code for forcing law-abiding citizens to lock up legally-owned firearms in their own home, rendering them useless for self-defense. And we know that “red flag” laws are easily abused, with virtually no deference given to due process in the confiscation of firearms from those believed to be a ‘threat’ on the smallest shred of ‘evidence’.
Another strange item from the Executive Order that begs constitutionality based on First Amendment principles is the following:
“(h) The Federal Trade Commission is encouraged to issue a public report analyzing how gun manufacturers market firearms to minors and how such manufacturers market firearms to civilians, including through the use of military imagery.”
Marketing is largely a function of free speech with regard to the use of language and visual images. Since minors cannot own firearms, it begs the question of how manufacturers could possibly market to them. Meanwhile, there are no such limitations on the entertainment industry with regard to the intense levels of violence portrayed in popular movies and video games.
The entire Executive Order flies in the face of last year’s Bruen Supreme Court decision affirming private ownership of firearms for self defense in public. “Shall not be infringed” is no longer a concept our government believes in.
