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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/biden-can-act-on-guns-without-congress-and-should/
Biden Can Act on Guns without Congress, and Should
Let me give you an example of exactly how dumb and dishonest our gun-control debate is.
In his dopey candlelight-vigil speech on the issue, President Joe Biden said a lot of dumb things, some of them intentionally and some of them hilariously unintentional. Leave it to Joe Biden of all people to worry about “gum control” — sic — something he has never quite mastered.
One of Biden’s complaints was about the fact that if the federal government fails to complete the background check on a would-be gun-buyer within three business days, then the sale may proceed. (May, not must: It is up to the seller.) That is true. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this is just the federal government being its predictably slow and ineffective self. I have had background checks time-out myself, more than once.
However, in a few cases, a sale that should not have been approved ends up getting greenlighted because the clock runs out. Biden proposes to change the law to forbid that. That probably is not going to happen and definitely should not happen: The deadline was put into the law in the first place to stop the federal government from using bureaucratic delays to create a shadow ban on firearms sales.
Here’s the thing: President Biden could do something about this problem — today — if he wanted to, and he doesn’t need Congress’s approval or any change in the law.
Right now, when the federal government finds out that a sale that should have been stopped has proceeded because of the time limit, it does — this part will not surprise you! — absolutely nothing. Somewhere in some subbasement somewhere in the bowels of Washington, some bureaucrat mutters to himself, “Well, that’s unfortunate.” And then nothing else happens.
These are sales for which people have filed the requisite paperwork at a licensed firearms dealer. That means that we not only have the name, address, Social Security number, and other information about the buyer, we also have the make, model, and serial number of the firearm that changed hands. All it would take would be for someone to go and get the gun.You don’t need Batman to fight that crime — you need a guy with a car and a shoebox.
Sending somebody out to pick up those guns would be a real improvement for several reasons: For one, we’d be taking a gun out of the hand of a prohibited person, which is good in and of itself. Second, in almost every case, a prohibited person who buys from a licensed retailer does so by lying on his application — as Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, pretty obviously did when acquiring a handgun a few years ago. (Hunter Biden is a prohibited person because he is a drug addict, and if he had not lied about that fact on his application, then it would have been rejected.) That means that we not only have the opportunity to take the gun away, we also have the opportunity to arrest the offender for a serious gun crime. Often, there will be at least two charges that could be made: felon in possession (which by itself can bring as much as ten years in prison) and making a false statement to acquire a firearm — a fifth-degree federal felony.
If we wanted to, we could take those guns — and those criminals — off the streets.
President Biden does not need Congress to change the law to make that happen. He does not need Mitch McConnell’s permission. Nobody can filibuster him. All he has to do is pick up the phone or put his name on a memo and instruct the lazy, useless, complacent, feckless, self-serving, waiting-around-for-their-retirements bums who work for him to get off their asses and do the job we pay them to do. You don’t need a SWAT team for this — Skippy the Intern should be able to handle most of this work just fine.
But, of course, Biden will not do what is within his power — and not only because it would mean locking people up for a crime committed by his idiot crackhead son.
Likewise, Biden could instruct the U.S. attorneys — the federal prosecutors who serve at his pleasure — to start prosecuting straw-buyer cases and start putting real federal time on the table for the people who do so much to provide our nation’s career criminals with a steady supply of firearms. But he won’t do that, either.
It is not news that Joe Biden is a dishonest, lazy, conniving partisan coward. That has been clear since the last days of disco. But if there are any intellectually honest Democrats left out there — and if there are, please, stand up and be counted — they should be asking why Biden will not do the things that he can do, especially given the fact that doing these things would put the crosshairs on actual criminals, something we should all be able to get behind.
The numbers are what they are: More than 80 percent of our murderers are habitual criminals with a half-dozen prior arrests, while 0.8 percent of the criminals in custody who used firearms in the crimes that got them locked up got that firearm from one of those gun shows that Democrats are always going on about. If we were serious about gun crime, we would hunt where the ducks are.
But Democrats have no interest in that, because they have an enemies list that supersedes substantive considerations.
So, President Biden: How about we keep our constitutional rights, and you and the people who work for you start doing your goddamned jobs?
There’s your bipartisan solution.
This is a bit of a shock, really. I've never really thought about it, but would have presumed that if a prohibited person fell through a loophole, and purchased a weapon, then the cops would make a beeline to his house, to confiscate the weapon, and arrest that individual.
None of that is happening.
If you slip through a loophole, you keep your weapon. That is so very wrong.
But it does make more statistics to use in the talking points.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:15PM (30 children)
Suggesting that a Democratic Party president can unilaterally decide to grab somebody's guns! After the fact! Without due process!
Help, help, the NWO is coming for my guns, I'm being repressed!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:37PM (5 children)
This but without irony. We love our govt no-fly and no-buy lists.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:42PM (4 children)
Criticize the authoritarian laws all you want, but please don't knee-jerk outta here when I point out that the OP was making a joke about Trump because he was the one that said take the guns first, worry about due process later.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:18PM (3 children)
That was on The Simpsons, 20-years ago, too. Connect the dots, and it's beginning to look like the only non-psycho ideas spouted by the left, they stole from FOX cartoon shows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @02:50AM (2 children)
Such as?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @09:37PM (1 child)
That was on Family Guy. Of course, he ripped it off from The Simpsons.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @10:25PM
Unsurprisingly, we ask "what ideas", and the conservative critic has none. Only that something, something, Fox News, something. And, Runaway is an ignorant moron.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @03:46PM
Not to worry, they'll let Runaway keep his gums.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by NPC-131072 on Sunday June 05 2022, @04:15PM (3 children)
Hello fren,
Runaway may finally be seeing the light. As those of us on the morally and intellectually superior left know, accidental negligence is willful violation [buckeyefirearms.org] but actual willful violation is not. [dailywire.com]
No shortages of cilantro for the ATF Taco Truck. [cbsnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:28PM
A Sirius Cybernetics GPP. Looks like the PR blitz was overrated.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday June 05 2022, @06:14PM
Cilantro is also good to make Orcs into a tasty afternoon snack.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @10:29PM
You cite "Buckeye Firearms", and DailyWire which is Davy Shapiro, the really smart conservative that Fuentes hates. Not really credible sources. Try harder, fren!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday June 05 2022, @05:13PM
Witness the violence inherent in the system!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:04PM (3 children)
Now you're just being silly.
If you are a prohibited person, you have almost certainly had your due process. You were prohibited when you were convicted of a felony, or were found to be mentally incompetent, or some such.
The 'loophole' here, is that the system sucks. The system is supposed to return a valid result in 3 days. When the system fails to return a valid result, then the buyer gets his gun. That is by design, not accident. Congress stipulated the procedure to prevent beauracrats from holding sales in limbo for months, or years.
So, when a purchase goes through, then the system finally catches up, it is the system's duty to notify law enforcement, so that the weapon can be recovered.
The system needs to be fixed, so that results are returned in a timely manner, but meanwhile, the system needs to follow up on those sales completed improperly.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday June 05 2022, @08:51PM (2 children)
I wonder if there could be some group that would be interested in exploiting that by ensuring no valid results comes back in 3 days to ensure that people who should not have guns are able to get them. Gee, I wonder who that might be?
Stepping further back, I think that this default of letting people get the guns instead of default of not getting them might also have been part of the scheme. Now I realize that it could be exploited either way. If the default were to prevent the gun sale until a valid result came back, that could be exploited. And you wouldn't like it. With the default being that the gun sale goes through, that is also exploited. The real fix is to provide enough government resources to actually do those background checks if necessary. But I can see that some people are not going to allow that to happen.
I don't have a problem with mentally stable law abiding adults having guns. But the other side doesn't like that for some reason.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @09:15PM
Now remember, gang, that's how conspiracy theories are born.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 06 2022, @04:12AM
I do believe Runaway had stated in the first place:
If Runaway was right, then it's part of the scheme from the start. And imagine if it had been applied rationally to other human endeavors. We'd have had Keystone XL years ago.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 06 2022, @04:31PM (13 children)
Now you're just talking crazy talk!
Everyone is saying that the best plan, the best, everyone is saying, is to take the guns BEFORE the fact!
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by NPC-131072 on Monday June 06 2022, @06:17PM (12 children)
Hello fren,
If only Republicans would listen to those of us on the morally and intellectually superior left. Look at this guy. [nypost.com] Around the same time he allegedly lied to obtain a .38 revolver, he's pictured naked with a Walther 9mm and drug paraphernalia. With that trigger discipline, he's lucky he didn't blow a lung out. [dailywire.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 06 2022, @06:56PM (11 children)
Ah yes, a tabloid story about a guy who holds no public office is the EXACT SAME as a direct quote coming from the sitting President of the United States of America!
Double plus good whataboutism you got there though, fren....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @08:17PM (5 children)
Your silly boilerplate strawman aside, if Trump were still president you would equate him with the tabloids, which sometimes really do have a way of hiding the truth in plain sight. Sure hope you're ready for the Eternal November.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 06 2022, @10:29PM (4 children)
The President of the United States of America has the entire power of the Executive Branch of the United States at his disposal.
Hunter Biden, on the other hand, doesn't even have a laptop!
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @12:06AM
Laptop or no, he still has some influence over his father's "power of the Executive Branch of the United States". Family business
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @01:57AM
Yes, exactly why Hunter is not in jail. Power indeed for those in need, eh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @07:22PM (1 child)
Loving the replies. I think their main point was to normalize Trump's nepotism; as if any of their Huntergate accusations are comparable to having nearly all your kids work in top White House positions. Republicans, the new Nazis comfortable with lying and cheating in order to win, and with most of the same bigotries. Given the violent rhetoric from rightwing media it is safe to say a 2nd holocaust is very much part of their plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @08:46PM
Democrats had (still have until January) many opportunities to undo republican policy, they have not, because they don't really oppose them
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by NPC-131072 on Monday June 06 2022, @11:30PM (4 children)
Hello fren,
Do you think the sitting President wants you to "buy a shotgun" [wikipedia.org] like Mark Middleton? [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 06 2022, @11:42PM (3 children)
Your links don't work.
(Score: 1, Funny) by NPC-131072 on Tuesday June 07 2022, @12:02AM (2 children)
Hello fren,
"work" is not a word those of us on the morally and intellectually superior left are familiar with.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 07 2022, @07:38PM (1 child)
If y'all are so busy working so hard why do you need my blue state welfare?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @10:17PM
Yeah, the conservative narrative has become transparently hypocritical. They need to invent insults to make themselves feel better. Personally I've found conservatives to be the most whiny and judgmental types most likely to cheat anyone and everyone, especially taxes. They are a corrosive influence on a free and just society with only propaganda convincing them otherwise. That is why the PR is focused on making them hate liberals, otherwise they might actually listen to us and vote in their own best interests instead of more tax breaks for the wealthy. Because don't forget that Trump raised taxes on the poorest while lowering them for the rich. Of course then Fox blames Biden, because hypocrisy and lies are their bread and butter.