I’m still looking for the one that calls for the confiscation of all legal weapons. (See a brief explanation on the purpose and use of executive orders historically.) It’s also important to remember not everything the president writes is an executive order.
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities. 18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
There is more in the list about mental health than gun ownership. I thought that’s what gun owners were hoping to see. Honestly, I do not know why gun-control advocates are not more upset about these EOs than 2nd amendment defenders. They seem pretty benign to me.
The same is indicated by Forbes:
It does not appear that any of the executive orders would have any impact on the guns people currently own-or would like to purchase- and that all proposals regarding limiting the availability of assault weapons or large ammunition magazines will be proposed for Congressional action. As such, any potential effort to create a constitutional crisis—or the leveling of charges that the White House has overstepped its executive authority—would hold no validity.
C’mon folks, even Slate realizes how wigged out this all became. From political reporter David Weigel:
And also: Me. For a while on Wednesday, I referred to Obama’s “executive orders,” printing the list of actions in full, but muffing the terminology. Why did all of us do that? You know, I think the pre-game panic about the very idea of Obama “signing executive orders” — I think that got into our heads. The result, ironically, was that a lot of people learned that Obama did something very scary — 23 ORDERs, above and beyond the will of Congress! — that he didn’t do, at all. If nominating an ATF director was done by “an executive order,” the Senate wouldn’t have to confirm him.
So which of the lazy journalists got it wrongest? One point goes to Carl Azus, for referring incoherently to “laws that don’t have to be approved by Congress.” Another to Brooke Baldwin, who addes the drama of Obama “signing” these 23 orders as children watched, even though CNN had a camera on Obama as he didn’t do that. But the Marvel No-Prize surely goes to Cavuto, for his scary count-off of “23, 23!” orders that suggest a “president out of control.”
Honesty should have led Weigel to the conclusion most of us have already reached: his profession is overflowing with those both lazy and out of control. It is clear enough to the rest of the world, it should be clear to them.
