U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- President-elect Joe Biden had a rare moment of clarity when it comes to gun control. He’s got a really big obstacle, called the Constitution.
The president-elect spoke with civil rights leaders in a virtual meeting. An unknown individual recorded the session and the media got a hold of it. What President-elect Biden admitted was enlightening.
“I am not going to violate the Constitution. Executive authority that my progressive friends talk about is way beyond the bounds…there is a Constitution,” President-elect Biden is heard telling the meeting attendees. “Our only hope and the way to deal with it is, where I have executive authority, I will use it to undo every single damn thing this guy [President Donald Trump] has done by executive authority, but I’m not going to exercise executive authority where it’s a question, where I can come along and say, ‘I can do away with assault weapons.’ There’s no executive authority to do away that.”
Not a King
Short answer: President-elect Biden knows he’s not a king. He can’t rule over subjects. He must govern his fellow citizens and the document that gives him that authority also limits him from unilaterally grabbing up rights from American citizens – also known as “the People.”
The American Republic was structured this way by the Founders for this very reason. The Executive Branch is charged with running the country, but its authority is checked by the Legislative Branch, or Congress. Its also checked by the Judicial Branch, which itself, is checked by the Executive Branch and Legislative Branch. No single branch of the three pillars of government gets full sway. It’s called the Separation of Powers doctrine. The Founders built it this way so all three are accountable to “the People” who put them in a position to represent their interests and there are checks and balances on each branch of government.
That’s why President-elect Biden also lectured those on his virtual meeting to cool the heated “defund the police” rhetoric. It’s not helping his cause to win over the final two U.S. Senate seats, which would give him a unified Legislative Branch that’s aligned with the goals of the Executive Branch.
In other words, President-elect Biden was telling the civil rights leaders to slow their roll with vilifying cops, so they can get the final seats needed to flip the Senate. Then, they can ram through whatever legislation they want, including blowing up the filibuster, packing the U.S. Supreme Court, and enacting unconstitutional gun control laws.
“I just raise it with you to think about how much do we push between now and January 5 – we need those two seats – about police reform. But I guarantee you, there will be a full-blown commission. I guarantee you it’s a major, major, major element,” President-elect Biden said.
That doesn’t mean an incoming administration is deferring out of respect for the U.S. Constitution. It is just the opposite. He is telling his supporters to lay low, bide their time and those gun control promises from the campaign trail will come if they can deliver U.S. Senate seats allied with their cause.
Gun control supporters are growing impatient. Antigun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety is demanding a “raft” of gun control immediately. They don’t care about the Constitution, protected rights, or the legislative process. Specifically, they want to criminalize private firearm transfers, regulate precursor firearm parts, and funnel tax dollars into federal studies to back their claims for more gun control. They would have President-elect Biden use Executive Orders to force these changes without the consent of Congress. Just yesterday both President-elect Biden and vice-president-elect Harris called for Congress to pass “common sense” gun control.
Sounds Autocratic
One columnist, Bambi Majumdar, appearing on the website MultiBriefs, wrote that Biden-Harris administration gun control is “…not going to be a problem for law-abiding gun owners. The problem would only exist for troublemakers. Biden, a gun owner himself, supports a stricter interpretation of the Second Amendment. His focus isn’t banning all guns but assault weapons…”
Majumdar claims the gun confiscation plans presented on the campaign trail aren’t a problem because they only affecting the owners of the 20 million-plus modern sporting rifles in circulation today, the most popular selling centerfire rifle that’s used daily for lawful purposes. President-elect Biden claimed to own two shotguns – a claim he made when he berated a union worker for questioning his Second Amendment commitments – but no one has seen them. He did once advise people to buy a shotgun, and told his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, to “fire two blasts” if there’s a perceived threat. There are photos of him in a squirt gun battle with his grandchildren. There’s no proof, to our knowledge, he’s part of the gun-owning community.
Majumdar has other infringements both she and the president-elect think aren’t problematic, including rationing gun sales, banning the manufacture, sale, and import of standard capacity magazines, criminalizing private firearm sales, and banning online ammunition and firearm sales, even though those firearm transfers must be completed in a face-to-face transaction with a proceed approval from the FBI. These are among the ideas that are being bantered about for executive action. That means gun control by edict.
Majumdar is wrong, and she knows it. President-elect Biden knows these are radical overreaches of a Chief Executive who would be drafting these orders beyond the scope of his authority. Yet, that’s what he campaigned on. Americans, by his estimation, have too much freedom and need to be reined in. He told America he was the one to do it. Now, he’s being expected to deliver.
When a leader acts alone without the consent of “the People,” it’s dictatorial. It’s despotic. It’s tyranny. Ironically, it is the entire reason the Second Amendment was protected by the Constitution. It’s was to protect the people when a leader ignored their rights.
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Maybe I’m just paranoid but is the ammo and reloading components shortage by design?
Not everything is a conspiracy.
Supply constraints, several things driving up demand, capital intensive industry with long lead times for equipment, government regulations, all add-up to shortages.
Yes but who caused all the “activities” that caused these constraints.
Think about that.
Do you wish to wax eloquent about the “activities” that led to the runs (no pun intended) on toilet paper both times this year? Unfortunately it is just people being people.
@RoyD, I agree, but at the same time, refuse to condemn people for stocking up on their ammo. Please note that I went the long way around the bush to keep from using the word “hoarding”. We should all be concerned about how this election has been run by those who would do our Nation harm.
I am one of the last people who could condemn people for stocking up on ammo. My ammo collection has been made by me over the last 40 years. With the exception of last Dec at Wal-Mart and a couple of Target Sports orders between Dec and March every round that is not 22LR has been assembled by me and that total is close to if not six figures. I have the ability to make about 40,000 more before I would run out of primers. But then guns and ammo has been my thing since I was 13 years old,… Read more »
I think the activities were created for other reasons, the demand for guns and ammo was an, understandable, fear-based response.
In any case, there is no shortage of ammo in the hands of Americans.
For anyone to have an expectation that prices would remain constant through all this turbulence is illogical. I’m not attributing that view to you, but many are outraged that the market is working as designed.
Just kind of suspicious that the government awards all these big ammo contracts when there is already a big ammo shortage. The source of information on the contracts is the NRA magazine.
Not yet but it will be. Many components and ingredients that go into U.S. manufacture of components, e.g. lead, are imported. Executive action can block those imports in an instant as well as block new U.S. sources such as re-opening lead mines and smelters.
Yup think about the last lead smelt in the country being shut down by the EPA under Obama that was an intentional attack on ammunition, and the covid restrictions were meant to cripple industry, and economy to put people in a desperate situation so they aren’t in a position to put up much of a fight. If you have to sell your guns so your kids can eat that’s exactly what they are looking for.
If lead was scarce, it would not be trading at its 10-year mean:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lead
The EPA regulations should not have been implemented, but sometimes people go to great lengths to use one fact to explain another without there being much correlation.
The lead supply plays a very small role in the current supply constraints or price of ammo.
The ammo shortage is a side-effect of the intentional damage done to the economy with COVID-19 restrictions.
The shortage is caused by a lot of people wanting to buy ammo combined with supply constraints (lead is not high on the list).
The Progressive New Left cannot run on issues. They can only run on deception and hyperbole. That is why they must masquerade behind false flags and oxymoronic slogans. They know they can tug on heart strings and fears in sufficient numbers to get people to abandon their true faith and true allegiance and submit themselves to a false sense of security. The antidote is truth. They cannot handle the Truth. Semper Fidelis
Like any construction project (or in this case de-construction), we need to know exactly what we want to end up with when the work of civil war is finished.