Part 1 of this article is available at
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2013/tle705-20130113-00.html
Response and clarifications:
Two persons sent personal e-mails this week to address my comments
regarding President Obama's eligibility. One of them took the
perspective, "If he's ineligible, then everything he's done is invalid."
I wish it were that simple. Believe me, I really do.
First things first: for him to be declared ineligible, the evidence
that he's ineligible will have to be broadly accepted. And he's not
going to go easily; I suspect that even if the Supreme Court agreed
that the evidence proves him ineligible, it would be a five-four vote
along partisan lines, and he would fight that. He would probably even
fight impeachment, and as noted in Part 1, impeachment requires more
than half of his own caucus to agree—and with the public that voted
for him in 2008 and again in 2012 likely proclaiming, "It's
irrelevant," I doubt the impeachment forces would get the vote.
Even if he were then impeached on that basis, it's not clear that
his actions would be automatically invalidated. First, if he is
impeached on ineligibility, we're left with the image of Joe Biden
becoming president, and Biden would reaffirm everything Obama has done.
Second, there is no actual Constitutional mechanism for dealing with
the actions of an ineligible—or rogue—President. Particularly
with the Senate—and a large fraction of the House—fighting to
retain the laws he has signed. I don't think it is at all clear how it
would turn out.
Regardless of this series of articles, I fear that the political
reality is that Obama will not be impeached (regardless of his origins)
unless he is found to have foreign allegiances sufficient to sustain a
charge of treason—and even then, only by convincing a majority of
the members of his party in both Houses that failure to impeach makes
them accessory to the charge. Then we're left with Biden replacing him,
unless Biden is also found guilty. Then, John Boehner becomes President—which
prospect, frankly, thrills me only by comparison.
The bulk of today's article will examine the twenty-three executive
actions taken this week to advance the cause of "gun control." Let me
note that, as Obama's agent in developing these proposals, if Obama can
be impeached on these grounds, then Biden should be impeached
concurrently.
| Summary of Executive Actions |
Commentary |
| 1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require
federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal
background check system. |
In the absence of the specific text of the memorandum,
it is not known what data is referenced. However, if the data were
collected by the government for another purpose and is surrendered
without individual warrant, this might be violation of the Fourth
Amendment protections on Unreasonable Search and Seizure. |
| 2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly
relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
that may prevent states from making information available to the
background check system. |
In the absence of the specific text of the memorandum,
it is not known what data is referenced. However, if the data were
collected by the government for another purpose and is surrendered
without individual warrant, this might be violation of the Fourth
Amendment protections on Unreasonable Search and Seizure. |
| 3. Improve incentives for states to share
information with the background check system. |
In the absence of the specific text of the memorandum,
it is not known what data is referenced. However, if the data were
collected by the government for another purpose and is surrendered
without individual warrant, this might be violation of the Fourth
Amendment protections on Unreasonable Search and Seizure. |
| 4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories
of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous
people are not slipping through the cracks. |
The Second Amendment says, "...shall not be
infringed," not "...shall not be infringed except for categories of
individuals..." This is at best a dangerous place to go, and is a
direct violation of the Second and Fourth Amendments if it gives the
Attorney General latitude to redefine violent criminals and violent
mental health patients. |
| 5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the
ability to run a full background check on an individual before
returning a seized gun. |
Again, this is circumstantial. But there is nothing
apparent here to stop "law enforcement" from picking up a gun from a
law abiding citizen without a warrant, then holding the gun until a
background check is accomplished. Besides which, I didn't think that
the Attorney General wanted the States to enforce federal laws—they
certainly made that clear in Arizona. |
| 6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed
gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for
private sellers. |
This is harmless only because it's unnecessary—
unless the goal is to have the dealers run checks for private sellers
and buyers for a fee, in which case it is one step toward criminalizing
private gun sales. |
| 7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun
ownership campaign. |
OK, this is also harmless because it's unnecessary—
just let the NRA do the job it does so well. |
| 8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun
safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission). |
OK, this is just absurd. Unless they're going to
require every gun owner to buy a $20,000 safe. |
| 9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require
federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal
investigations. |
Uh, aren't they already doing this? But I'm sure that
returning stolen guns isn't part of their agenda. |
| 10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on
lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law
enforcement. |
Uh, ditto? |
| 11. Nominate an ATF director. |
I've got a better idea. Abolish the ATF. |
| 12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and
school officials with proper training for active shooter
situations. |
I hope this means teaching permitting first responders
and school officials to gun up and train up, but I doubt it. Of course,
doing it the other way violates the Second Amendment |
| 13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun
violence and prosecute gun crime. |
How does one "prevent gun violence"? And how do you
prevent a violent person from substituting "non-gun violence"
instead? |
| 14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the
Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of
gun violence. |
I'm informed that the last time the CDC got into this,
it was a politicized study intended to find reasons to outlaw gun
ownership. We don't need that. As some other pundit has already noted,
just give them Lott's book. |
| 15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report
on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety
technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative
technologies. |
This is another "I'm with stupid" provision. |
| 16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not
prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their
homes. |
OK, this is serious. First, the Affordable Care Act
DOES prohibit these questions (thank you, NRA)1. Second, this is a blatant attempt to deputize
physicians to perform warrantless searches and take legal—rather
than medical—testimony without the protection of the Fifth
Amendment. I respectfully submit that this provision is, by itself,
impeachable for its attempted subversion of the Constitution. |
| 17. Release a letter to health care providers
clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of
violence to law enforcement authorities. |
This comment distinguished "threats of violence" from
"gun ownership." But I'm not sure that no such law actually exists, and
it does require a violation of patient-doctor confidentiality. Still, I
will concede that notifying of actual threats is not necessarily a bad
thing, and might have prevented at least the Aurora shooting. (Of
course, so would any patron in that theater who could have shot back
without violating the stupid, anti-Constitutional "no firearms"
rule.) |
| 18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school
resource officers. |
What does this have to do with Gun Safety? |
| 19. Develop model emergency response plans for
schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher
education. |
Uh, isn't this something that has already been done?
Of course, it does assume that those organizations are illegal and
anti-Constitutional gun-free zones. |
| 20. Release a letter to state health officials
clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must
cover. |
For that matter, what does this have to do with Gun
Safety? Other than getting people who need counseling into
counseling? |
| 21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential
health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges. |
Ditto. |
| 22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity
regulations. |
Ditto. |
| 23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries
Sebelius and Duncan on mental health. |
Ditto. |
The bottom line is that, even absent the restrictions on gun
ownership elsewhere in the President's proposals—which appear to
include acceptance of the atrocious Anti-Constitutional Feinstein bill
as a baseline—the President's "benign" Executive Actions (or
Executive Orders, or whatever) include several provisions that appear
to circumvent the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by providing for
warrantless searches (conducted by doctors, who don't have enough to do
under Obamacare, apparently) and for doctors to also force their
patients to witness against themselves on matters of gun ownership. In
addition, it admits a medical opinion (without legal foundation) to
replaced a formal, individual judicial evaluation that a person is
dangerous and should not possess firearms. "... shall not be infringed,
except for people who are mentally ill because they own guns and for no
other reason." As such, these provisions even without further action
provide grounds for Impeachment.
(I will note in passing that DSM IV—the psychologist's manual to
diagnosis of mental illness—now distinguishes hundreds of mental
illnesses, and the next edition to be published later this year will
distinguish more. So it would be easy to manipulate a diagnosis which
could prevent gun ownership for millions of people, rather than the
very few dangerous psychopaths that lip service would have us believe
are being kept away from guns. This is a very credible fear if we don't
stop this here. Just ask all of the former Soviet mental patients.)
While this shakes out, I advise that if a doctor asks if you own a
gun, you take the Fifth. (I'm glad that I do see one of my doctors more
frequently in the gun section of a local hunting store than I do in his
office.) After this shakes out...take her to the range with you.
While not directly relevant to this series of articles, I will note
that the legislation passed by the New York legislature and signed by
Governor Cuomo is anti-Constitutional. I don't recall reading "...shall
not be infringed, except in New York State" anywhere in the Bill of
Rights. Since this legislation outlaws guns and magazines which are
currently legal and requires their surrender; and since it leaves the
people of New York without the ability to defend themselves against
outlaws who ignore these restrictions; then by the arguments in this
series of papers, it represents a declaration of war against the
law-abiding, gun-owning citizens of New York State, and is thus an act
of Treason against the People of New York and the United States.
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