Obama announces crackdown on gun purchases

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama launched his unilateral attempt to crack down on illegal gun purchases on Tuesday, blaming the “constant excuses for inaction” from Congress as justification for his exercise of executive power.

But in an emotional address quoting the Bible, the Constitution and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Obama also tacitly acknowledged the limits on what he can do without Congress.

Significant change will come only when voters rise up to demand it from lawmakers, he said.

“That’s why we’re here today,” Obama told a crowd in the East Room of the White House. “Not to debate the last mass shooting, but to try to do something to prevent the next one.”

Under the modifications Obama announced, law enforcement officials will warn private gun sellers they may be vulnerable to prosecution if they don’t register with the government and begin conducting background checks on potential gun buyers.

The Department of Justice will launch an intensive education campaign to push more private sellers into the licensing process, while also hiring investigators to turn around more thorough background checks, more quickly.

Obama has long sought to use the law to curb gun violence, pushing for legislation on universal background checks after the 2012 Newtown massacre, but the proposal ultimately failed in Congress. After the mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Ore., in October, he directed staffers to scour existing gun laws for steps he could legally take to strengthen them, apparently concluding that he’d get nowhere with a Republican-led Congress.

But the changes Obama is ordering fall far short of his sweeping goals of universal background checks or closing the so-called gun show loophole, which lets hobbyists and collectors get around the licensing system, in part because lawmakers would have to approve the funding for all the hiring.

Though the steps are relatively modest in comparison, Republican lawmakers nonetheless are furious, calling Obama’s effort a dangerous overreach by the executive and a violation of the constitutional separation of powers.

“Ultimately, everything the president has done can be overturned by a Republican president, which is another reason we must win in November,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in a statement released while Obama was talking.

Even as Obama contemplates a year of executive action to address a range of problems, the gun plan demonstrates the limits of acting unilaterally rather than with the support of Congress.

“After the president takes those steps,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said before Obama spoke, “Congress is still going to have a responsibility to act in their own right as well.”

Reaction to gun control steps

U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers, a Republican representing the 2nd District which includes Randolph County, said she opposes President Obama’s announced executive actions to restrict Americans access to guns.

“Our president remains under the impression that he is above the law. He is, once again, working around Congress to demonstrate a flagrant disregard toward our constitutional rights and the separation of powers between our three branches of government. These are not the actions of a leader — simply choosing to ignore those who disagree with him politically,” she said.

“This time, he has zeroed in on restricting our gun rights and access to guns. This type of go-at-it-alone behavior has not — and will not — be tolerated. As a concealed carry permit holder myself, I will not allow for our president to trample on our right to bear arms.”

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, who represents the 8th District which includes all of Montgomery and portions of Randolph, also issued a statement opposing the President’s executive action.

“After seeing his gun control agenda fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate last Congress, President Obama is once again resorting to unilateral executive action to achieve his goal. This latest effort to unconstitutionally restrict one of our most fundamental rights would not have prevented recent mass shootings. Instead, the president’s actions would enable a national gun registry, trample the rights of law-abiding citizens and could actually have a chilling effect on people seeking help for mental illness.

“The president should listen to the American people and work with Congress on reforms that would actually reduce gun violence, like confronting our mental health crisis and preventing criminals and terrorists from entering our country. I have fought the president’s liberal gun control agenda tooth and nail, and I won’t back down now.”

Hudson said he has fought against the president’s “dangerous and unprecedented abuse of executive power” at every turn. In June, his amendment to stop President Obama’s “green-tip” bullet ban passed the House and helped put intense pressure on the administration to abandon its “unilateral attempt to restrict our Second Amendment rights.”

Chris Rey, a Democrat who is running to represent North Carolina in the U.S. Senate, said he supports the President’s reforms to curb gun violence, including a universal background check for anyone buying a gun, more funding for mental health treatment, additional FBI staff and more Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive agents.

“I agree with President Obama’s actions today,” he said in a press release Tuesday. “The focus is to protect as many Americans as possible. Eliminating loopholes in background checks, adding additional resources for mental health treatment and other measures in today’s executive actions will help curb gun violence. If these measures protect one American from senseless gun violence, then they are worthwhile.”

Dr. Greg Brannon, a Republican who is challenging Richard Burr for his U.S. Senate seat, stated his opposition.

“In a petulant and lawless press appearance, Barack Obama is using the phony issue of gun violence to infringe on the Constitutional rights of physicians and their gun owner patients,” he said.

“This is egregious and illegal for any number of reasons. As a physician, I can assure you that what this government has already done to the doctor patient relationship is immoral. They started sneaking in some back door gun control measures with Obamacare, and this just takes it to a new level.”

And as Brannon added, what the administration is doing is only part of the problem. It is also how they are trying to do this. “They do not have the constitutional legal right to go around Congress and the courts on this, and yet they are. So what you have is an illegal executive order that applies illegal constraints on all Americans.”

The problem is not just the Obama Administration. “We’ve seen Richard Burr and the rest of the Republican Congress give Obama carte blanche for anything he wants for seven years and counting — so, of course, they are to blame as well,” said Brannon. “This is why I’m running for the Senate. We need people who will stand up to blatantly illegal actions that are growing in size and in their control of our lives. This is not what America is supposed to be about.”

Sen. Richard Burr said he opposes the President’s plan to limit the sale of firearms to, and by, law-abiding citizens.

“I’ve been committed to protecting the Second Amendment rights of Americans since I was elected. I will continue to defend our constitutional rights, regardless of President Obama’s personal preferences.”