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Can the President get around the lack of gun control legislation by
issuing executive orders? We have this from the NY Times, via Newsmax: Rep. Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, said Biden had informed lawmakers Monday that there are “19 independent steps that the president can take by executive order.” Speier said the executive action is part of the “most comprehensive gun safety effort in a generation.”The report did not specify what the proposed steps might be, but Biden has been saying similar things for weeks, and we don't have to wait to begin to anticipate what they might try. We have a precedent for one such step that was not an executive order of the President, but a 1994 "finding" by the outgoing Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen that several models of semi-automatic 12-gauge shotguns were "destructive devices". After Bentsen's finding if one tried to register the shotgun, as required by the NFA of 1934, one was told "We aren't accepting registrations at this time. We will let you know when we are ready to do so." A few years later they quietly let it be known they were ready, but didn't provide a form suited for the purpose, offering only a form that had the registrant declare under penalty of perjury that he was the manufacturer of the weapon, with no allowance for purchasers or for corporation owners. The BATFE says it will not accept any other form, and one agent said "We don't have a budget for processing registrations, so we won't accept them," and "It is too late to register one without penalty." But they have a budget for criminally prosecuting non-registrants for possessing one. If you read the statute it seems to exclude 12-gauge shotguns, which have a bore of .5 inch (.50 caliber), but Bentsen hung his finding some such shotguns were "destructive devices" on the words "or (F) similar device." By that reasoning he could have found almost anything to be a "destructive device", including every make and model of firearm, firearm part, or ammunition. Courts have tended to defer to such administrative findings, although this one has not been legally challenged. If that precedent is followed, Obama might have Treasury Secretary Geithner, before he leaves office, issue a finding that all kinds of firearm, magazines, or ammunition are "destructive devices", leaving it to defendants to pay the costs to try to overturn their prosecutions, and if any of those prosecutions are sustained on appeal, the Administration will have the legal tool they need to eliminate all those things (or create a lot of violators waiting to be discovered and prosecuted, afraid to use their weapons anywhere). -- Jon ---------------------------------------------------------- Jon Roland Campaign http://jonroland.net 2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322 twitter.com/lex_rex Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------- -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Constitution Society http://constitution.org 2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322 twitter.com/lex_rex Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------- |
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