President Obama just finished giving a speech about measures he plans to take using executive action to try and lower the incidence of gun violence in this country. I’m not going to outline his plans. You can read and hear about them all over the media. If you want, you can learn how terrible “Emperor Obama’s decrees” are from the NRA, the right wing press and Republican presidential candidates. The fact is, Obama isn’t doing much. He can’t do much without Congress passing laws, and the NRA is holding enough members of Congress at electoral gunpoint that nothing is going to happen there for a long while. What Obama proposes won’t create any major changes in the availability of guns, and it won’t bring down the level of gun violence significantly. But it will make some difference. It’s something. It’s what he can do. It’s a small but important step.

I lock my doors when I leave the house. That won’t stop someone who is serious about wanting to rob me. Anyone who has the necessary skill and determination can stake out my house, figure out when it’s empty, then either pick a lock or use a hardware store glass cutter to get in and take what they want. It’s not that difficult. I take security measures to make it harder for the casual thief to bust in, grab a few items and run. If the doors are locked and the windows are closed, that should be enough to discourage someone who isn’t absolutely bound and determined to get in.

Making it harder for bad actors and people with mental illnesses to get guns won’t keep guns out of all their hands, but it will stop a shooting here and a shooting there, which means a few people who otherwise would be injured or killed by gunfire will be spared. It’s not going to reduce the 30,000 annual deaths from firearms significantly. But it’s a start. And it will help keep the conversation going, maybe bend it enough that people realize the right for decent people to bear arms won’t be impeded by measures designed to keep firearms out of the hands of people who plan to harm others.

This article appears in Dec 31, 2015 – Jan 6, 2016.

20 replies on “Obama Takes Executive Action to Limit Gun Violence. Let the Shouting Begin.”

  1. Safire says it will stop a shooting or two.

    Care to provide facts? Can you point to ANY shooting this would have prevented? You can’t, you simply made it up.

    The only thing that liberals hate more than white Christian men is the US Constitution.

  2. The criminals won’t break in your home David. They want guns. Now that they are harder for them to get, all of our homes are at a higher risk of breakin. This feels exactly the same as when the President made health care more affordable. My deductible increased 400%.

    You guys are jokes.

  3. Get a job, you old coots that sit around and comment about guns all day. Stop being a drain on society. You obviously have too much time on your hands. Do something productive with it instead of whining like digital idiots that no one cares to hear from.

  4. The amount of gun sales this will restrict is dwarfed by the thousands of hardened criminals Obama has turned loose on the populace from prisons and the literally tens of thousands of rapists, murderers, kidnappers and otherwise bad people that Obama, and the liberals in Tucson, support coming across the border.

  6. “If only one life can be saved…”

    Well, as long as the murderer isn’t a radical islamist, one of Barak Hussein Obama’s chosen ones, whom through his explicit policies was allowed to enter our country and kill.

    14 dead in San Bernardino, their blood on Obama’s hands.

  7. no shouting Tucson weekly totally logical answers that you don’t want to hear that’s all. Every answer to disqualify Obama’s selfish executive move has already been stated. Even more he is going to try to open peoples private medical records that are protected. Making it venerable to future subversive grabs blown out back ect.. to prevent hiring by jobs or insurance companies to open personal records for other things.Past smoking could be one. A . They talk about mental health. Well they talk as if it can’t be cured and those soo called legal people who have to go through a future purchase under his executive action aren’t going to suffer a mental breakdown in the future. They already have a gun legally then. Nothing is going to prevent a determined person. No law can. Its inevitable.

  8. So all of you saying that this restricts your right to access guns that means you can’t pass a background check and are either a felon, seriously mentally ill, or a drug addict. So I think your comments can be discounted.

  9. bslap-Liberalism is a mental disease. I’m sure you won’t mind that in order to exercise your right to free speech, to post here, or anywhere, will require a background check from the federal government, and certainly you wouldn’t be approved to purchase a weapon. In fact, the next time you visit your doctor, he could turn you in.

  10. Naysayers to David and Obama re: Executive action on guns. Everything you say is not supported by what is going on in all other developed countries. We have at least 10Xs the number of deaths from guns than the developed country’s highest. Look for facts and turn off Fox. BTW I just saw an argument against President Obama’s action citing the NRA’s words as evidence. For those who do not know research, citing an organization that stands to gain tremendously by said argument is not a credible source. I will post some evidence comparing our country’s deaths by guns to other developed countries. WE WIN BY FAR. THere are many links to support this.

  12. Gun deaths due to gun show loophole:

    here

    http://smartgunlaws.org/universal-gun-back…

    “For example, in 2012, a gunman killed three people, including his wife, and injured four others at a spa in Wisconsin, after buying a gun through a private seller he found online. The shooter was prohibited from purchasing guns due to a restraining order his wife had acquired against him, but was able to buy the gun anyway because the seller was not required to run a background check.”

  13. Fact Checker 13 – you should have fact checked a little deeper. That gun was NOT purchased online, it was purchased in a parking lot. NOTHING about Obama’s crying would have changed that, NOTHING. From the NYT which is the source quoted from what you posted. You CAN’T buy and take possession of guns online. It HAS to be shipped to a licensed dealer and there HAS to be a background check. That’s the law.

    “That is how Mr. Haughton was able to buy a handgun for $500 in the parking lot of a McDonalds that he took with him on Oct. 21 to the spa in a suburb of Milwaukee where his wife worked.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/us/gun-law-loopholes-let-buyers-skirt-background-checks.html

  14. Your super smart president said you can get a gun off the internet without a background check……
    Ok go try it. Cause you can’t! You purchase a gun and it has to go to a licensed dealer to receive it. Then you must submit a background check before he can hand it over. So Giant Fail!!!! Non of you anti gun idiots have even read the Executive order have you? Get off your butt and read

  17. Many of our vet’s who suffer P.T.S.D will be under scrutiny.under Obama’s executive order. In other words, anyone who has any kind of mental health issue, regardless if that certain individual is dangerous or not, will fall under this category. It’s not fair to our vet’s who have paid a hefty ransom, for providing liberty to our nation.

    No, this is not going to go well with the American people at all. Obama said “If he could only save one life through his use of ‘executive order, he’s accomplished his task.” The only thing he’ll manage to accomplish by his ‘executive power ‘ is to dilute the power of the 2nd amendment right of the constitution, in such a way, that it won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.

    Terrorists will continue to posses assault weapons, criminals will never comply with the law.The only ones that will be effected in the long run, will be the law abiding citizens of this nation.

    When the next attack kills x number of innocent people and Obama’s so called gun control measures are in place, who will he blame ? Gun’s or the people who didn’t give heed to his ‘executive order’ demanding stricter gun control measures.

  18. So, any woman who has ever experienced postpartum depression should never have her opportunity to exercise her 2nd Amendment rights?

    How progressive…..

  19. denying anyone from purchasing a fire arm because of maybe prior medical conditions is totally against the law! PTSD is a medical condition. Depression is a medical condition. Last time I checked its a sealed medical record and NO one has the right to peer into it under the LAW. Your medical records are private under the law. They also treat this and other conditions as if they are incurable. So what these people going to have their RIGHTS denied? Fact EVERYONE suffers or suffered depression sometime in their life. So does that mean NO ONE can have a firearm then?

  20. The phony surrounds himself with the families of victims of gun violence to garner up sympathy. I notice the family of Kate Steinle wasn’t invited. I wonder if that was because she was shot dead by an ILLEGAL alien? Hmmm?

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