Recent Executive Orders Explained

The Buckeye Firearms Association just sent out this succinct explanation of each of the 23 Executive Orders recently signed by President Obama. Much ado, pomp and circumstance, and "show"...accomplishing nothing more than a nice feeling for the one who signed the orders, in this blogger's humble opinion.

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Obama's 23 Executive Orders 

translated from the formal bureaucratese

Submitted by cbaus on Thu, 01/17/2013 - 12:00.
Editor's Note: This succinct, pithy analysis of Barack Obama's 23 Executive Orders was posted yesterday on the Internet and has quickly gone viral. The original author appears to be this blogger.


So Obama released his Executive Orders to Prevent Maniacs From Being Maniacs today. I've taken the time to translate the summaries into plain English below:

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

     Tell the government to follow the law.

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.

     Tell the regulators to stop the stupid and useless regulations.

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

     Pay the states back for the unfunded mandates that the Feds keeps making.

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.

     Tell the Attorney General to do his job.

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

     Start another unfunded mandate. (See #3.)

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

     Tell FFLs how to do something no one is ever going to bother to do.

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

     Do the same thing the NRA already does, only half as well at twice the cost.

8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

     Do what Underwriters Laboratories already does, only half as well at twice the cost.

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

     Tell the Feds to do their jobs.

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

     Tell the DOJ to do its job.

11. Nominate an ATF director.

     Tell myself to do my job.

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

     Spend more money.

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

     Tell everyone to do their [$%^&*#] jobs.

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

     Tell the doctors to figure out why it isn’t the feds’ fault that they aren’t doing their jobs.

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.

     Figure out a way to push “smart guns” that don’t exist and wouldn’t be useful as guns if they did.

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

     Tell everyone that Obamacare doesn’t actually mean what it says.

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

     Tell everyone that, seriously, Obamacare doesn’t actually mean that. We had to pass it to find out what was in it, after all.

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

     Tell everyone that I’ve been a partisan hack for the last month every time I said the NRA was crazy to want to post more cops in schools.

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

     Do the same thing that every police agency in the country has already done, only half as well and at ten times the cost.

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

     Tell doctors what they already know.

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

     Tell people what the parts of Obamacare that don’t say anything say.

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

     Tell HHS to do their job.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

     Hand the rest of the job of telling everyone to do their jobs off to someone else so it is no longer my job.

Self Control or Gun Control?

First of all, I'm licensed by the state of Michigan to carry a concealed weapon. I've trained extensively, I've taken the required class, I've studied and I certainly feel I'm qualified to carry a firearm, which is a right guaranteed by the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution—training, classes or studies be damned—to be ready to defend myself, my loved ones, and others in need of protection from the garbage among us that would do us harm.

Now, zoom back to Friday, July 20th, just after midnight in a Cinemark theater in Aurora, Colorado. That establishment forbade citizens like myself from carrying their weapons inside the theater, just as most theaters do here in Michigan. At least one patron of the theater that night has come forward to report he is licensed to carry a concealed firearm in Colorado, but was not carrying due to the establishment's rules. Friends, please help me to understand what good that company policy did? What good is it presumed to do in any self defense situation?

The city of Chicago has some of the most stringent gun-forbidding laws in the nation, yet every single night gun violence occurs throughout that city (just read the Chicago Tribune as I do). Does it really, really make sense to forbid law-abiding citizens their Constitution-given right to arm and protect themselves? I think not.

The old saying seems trite, but think about it:  An armed society is a polite society.

Here's my own belief:  So-called Gun-Free Zones are a farce; they exist to make politicians and those who fear firearms feel better about having to tolerate gun freedoms granted us by the Constitution.

Here's what one of my favorite gun proponents had to say about the situation:
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Massad Ayoob

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ON GUN-FREE ZONES Posted: 22 Jul 2012 11:36 PM PDT Our last entry here touched on “gun-free zones,” and whether the theater where the latest mass-murder atrocity took place guaranteed its premises to be a safe hunting preserve for the mad dog killer who wrought horror there. In blog commentary, I was asked if I could provide a link to confirm that the establishment where it happened, and its parent chain Cinemark, forbade law-abiding armed citizens to legally carry firearms there. Try these: http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2012/07/no-guns-policy-at-cinemark-theaters.html http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/07/robert-farago/cinemark-theaters-no-legal-firearms-allowed/ http://www.defensivecarry.com/forum/open-carry-issues-discussions/89005-asked-leave-cinemark-theater.html http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/showthread.php?46023-Cinemark-Theaters Debate over whether a court would determine that the “guns forbidden” policy carried power of law seems moot: we’re talking practical reality here. Most of us go by the common sense precept, “Do not go where you are not wanted.” Armed citizens who could have stopped the killer were clearly notified by the company policy that “they were not welcome there.” When you make potential rescuers unwelcome, do not blame those potential rescuers for not being there when the disaster happens, and the death toll mounts because what could have stopped the killing has been banned from your establishment.

None of Their Damn Business

Sometimes I just have to shake my head and wonder, "what the..............".

This story both angers me and boggles my mind.

As you've no doubt heard from grumblers like me any number of times, the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizens the right to keep and bear arms—even in a misguided state like Illinois—end of argument. The fact that I or any law-abiding citizen in these United States owns firearms or is even licensed to carry them concealed is my personal decision.

This smacks of tactics seen in Nazi Germany in the '30s, prior to weapons being confiscated. Fortunately, since the time this article was published earlier this year, even Illinois is beginning to loosen it's restrictions on gun ownership. 'Bout time.

The U.S. Constitution

 Today, January 5, 2011, 435 members of Congress will raise their right hands and take the following oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

U.S. Capitol, Washington D.C.

This is nothing new; the oath has been sworn by members of Congress since the creation of our Constitution in 1787. The problem is that the oath is often forgotten or ignored. In fact, to help members better fulfill their oath, the House will not only read the Constitution aloud on Thursday, 1/6/11, but also adopt a rule requiring that every bill cite what specific provisions of the Constitution empower Congress to enact it. If followed, that rule should serve to rein in much of the outlandish cradle-to-grave protective legislation and other nonsense coming out of Washington. Yet, isn't it a shame such a rule is needed?

Constitution of the United States of America

I took a very similar oath upon my enlistment into the U.S. Air Force in 1968:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God. 

I consider myself to be still under that oath, up to the references to the President (Commander-in-Chief) and the officers appointed over me. Obviously, since my discharge I am no longer bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, my promise to support and willingness to defend our Constitution continues to this day. That’s one reason I traveled to Washington D.C. last April to participate in the Second Amendment March on the grounds of the Washington Monument.

Second Amendment March, Washington DC, April 2010

As the saying goes, the 2^nd Amendment is the amendment that protects all the others. Our forefathers realized an armed population is necessary for our defense from enemies both within and outside our country’s borders. In addition, they believed self-defense is a God-given right, and therefore made sure U.S. citizens were guaranteed the right to bear arms.

Let’s keep our collective fingers crossed that our federal government really is led by and limited to the powers outlined in that fine, old Constitution. We could do (and have done) much worse. 

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;–let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children’s liberty.

~28-year-old Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838