A few days ago, Nick chronicled the various gun control proposals that Hillary Clinton released as part of her presidential campaign, explaining very thoroughly why whoever ghost-wrote these proposals needed to extract their heads from their nether regions, metaphorically-speaking. (You should go read it, if you haven’t yet.) As it turns out, even the Obama Administration had to conceded that Hillary’s proposals won’t fly . . .
Greg Sargent, writing for the left-wing insider blog Plum Line, has the story:
When Hillary Clinton rolled out a series of new gun control proposals this week, one of the most newsworthy and controversial ideas she put forth was a vow to use executive action as president to fix [sic] the background check system if Congress refused to act.
But the Obama administration has already taken a long, internal look at the same executive-action proposal Clinton has promised to undertake, and has doubts over whether it can be made to work in practical terms, according to current and former senior administration officials…. [I]t turns out that this proposal may be harder to actually implement than it might seem….
Current law requires those who are “engaged in the business” of selling firearms to get a federal firearms license — and to conduct background checks on buyers. Private sellers don’t need to conduct such checks. Gun control advocates have argued that administrative rules defining what that phrase means are too vague, allowing many private sellers who are actually selling guns as a quasi-business to do so without running checks on buyers. They argue that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms could tighten this up with a rule that narrows the definition of who is “engaged in the business.”
The Obama administration looked at this idea, officials tell me, studying whether “engaged in the business” could be defined with, say, a threshold number of guns sold — say, 50 or 100 per year. If this were done, those who identify as private sellers (and sell without background checks) but sell that many guns could no longer do so without getting a license and performing background checks.
But the idea quickly presented complications. One former administration official involved in these discussions tells me that some officials worried it would present new and unforeseen enforcement problems. One senior administration official says some worried internally that defining a commercial seller through a hard sales threshold — as opposed to, say, leaving it to the discretion of law enforcement to determine who is a commercial seller — could be subject to legal challenge and could end up sweeping in people selling guns who clearly were not engaged in it as a long term business. This could create untold logistical — not to say political — difficulties. [And, hey, maybe some legal issues or something? – JKP]
“It was very clear that it was way more complicated than the other stuff being looked at,” the senior administration official tells me….
Look, Mrs. Clinton, when even the ardently anti-gun Obama Administration is telegraphing that your gun control proposals are too extreme politically – and possibly illegal to boot – that’s probably a good indication that you’ve been coloring outside the lines a bit too much. Maybe throttle it back a little bit, and spend some time getting ready for that debate with Joe Biden, eh?
DISCLAIMER: The above is an opinion piece; it is not legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship in any sense. If you need legal advice in any matter, you are strongly urged to hire and consult your own counsel. This post is entirely my own, and does not represent the positions, opinions, or strategies of my firm or clients.
Poser-who? cough
I wish that picture would go away. I own that model Browning. It grosses me out seeing that pansy holding it.
And put a freakin’ choke in the bottom barrel already.
I heard they had to take the choke out to lighten up the gun for O
That Browning is a thing of beauty, but why define a firearm by a douchebag who uses it? Gangbangers use the same model Glocks I have, drunk drivers crash the same model car I’ve got, mass shooters use some of the same ARs we all have.
Besides, I doubt Obama owns that gun.
Oh, you have a Glawk 40 Problem Solver?
Damn, beat me to it!
Naw cuz, it be a fawty!
“This could create untold logistical — not to say political — difficulties.”
The key here is “political difficulties”. The Obama Regime has had no problem with logistical and legal difficulties around their agenda. They have circumvented the Constitution numerous times, and created administrative nightmares for their federal government minions. The only thing that seems to matter to this regime is anything that may become an obstacle to them acquiring more power. I firmly believe if it weren’t for Obama’s incompetence forcing parts of his agenda on the American people, he would have declared himself Emperor already.
Thank God for “political difficulties”. or he would have already declared himself President (dictator) for life.
He did, here’s his brownshirt movement.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/10/daniel-zimmerman/attorney-general-strong-cities-network-will-battle-extremism-on-a-global-scale/
No, those may be dead ends already, but what I’m expecting to see out of the White House is a ban on ALL Russian milsurp ammo. As part of trade sanctions on Putin’s actions, of course.
The test balloon flew, so expect it to go live on the large scale at the first excuse.
More likely a ban on ALL imported ammo period. If you can’t band the guns, ban the ammo. He does not need congress to ban imports, as we have already seen.
Think ammo is expensive and hard to get now? Just wait.
And rifle mags over 10 rounds too since you can’t import rifles with capacities over that much anyway so why allow mags? Oh, you can still get domestic mags over 10 rounds but they will be crap since most domestic-made foreign mags are unreliable, cheap garbage.
Imports are always the low-hanging fruit of executive orders that every president has f****** with since Reagan and the ironic thing is the majority of gun owners don’t give a shit unless it affects their AR’s, shotguns, bolt-guns, 1911’s, and revolvers because f*** foreign guns and free-trade as well as the ability to afford quality guns on the cheap, buy ‘Merican overpriced guns!!
To be fair, cutting imports forces domestic purchases, which spurs domestic production to meet demands, which provides more jobs to produce goods, bringing more people above the poverty line, increasing the amount of potential gun owners (most of whom will probably own), increasing pro-2A clout.
To all of you who aren’t paying close attention, Obama doesn’t give a rat’s nest about the objections he just raised. He does, however, wish to covertly tank Monica’s boyfriend’s wife’s candidacy, and publicly undermining her platform positions does just that.
So no, Obama would gladly try to push for this stuff but at this point it’s a better ploy to oppose it and hurt Clinton.
Not having a hard limit is a feature, not a bug. The BATFE doesn’t have a hard cut off for the same reason all of their rules are vague. They want to selectively enforce.
Exactly! I am sure there are a lot of us that would love to know a specific number of guns we could sell so as to not be considered “in the business” of selling guns. Threatening to clarify the deliberate ambiguity of this is like threatening to throw Brer Rabbit into the briar patch.
Oh no! Not the brier patch! Anything but the brier patch!
The logic of this article is flawed, namely in the fact that it assumes A) she actually cares and B) the people who will vote for her based on her position on guns are actually smart enough to understand all the points made above
I’m not sure what’s worse, having a ‘hard limit’ on selling guns or leaving it up to the discretion of a law enforcement official. I suspect in places like NYC it might be better to just have a limit so you can cover yourself instead of worrying whether about what the district attorney’s interpretation will be today..
A reasonable hard limit wouldn’t be out of line in initiating dealer vs consumer-seller determination. I’d also look at length of ownership of said firearms as another factor. If a guy is clearing out his collection, that’s likely a consumer-seller. If a guy is buying a gun a month just to resell them, that’s an indicator of a dealer.
It isn’t hard to have a multi-pronged test, as long as the prongs are disclosed. Why does Hillary or anybody else think we need single-factor determinations?
Yet another reason for the issue to be left to the states to determine and enforce. There are state level laws concerning who is a used car dealer, for example, and who is just a person selling a car. I am sure they differ by state for reasons good and bad, but easier to understand and have changed when they are local.
” I’d also look at length of ownership of said firearms as another factor. If a guy is clearing out his collection, that’s likely a consumer-seller. ”
I’m not interested in creating records (for the government) of what guns I’ve bought and how long I’ve owned them.
Fvck that noise.
There were over 250K FFL holders when Hillary’s husband became President and by the time he was done destroying the kitchen table FFLs there were well under 100K remaining. Now Hillary proposes steps that would force at least a partial undoing of one of her husband’s legacies.
What kind of sissy needs a muzzle brake on a shotgun?
Oh right.
Can we please, as a group, take a pledge to STOP telling Lib-Progs like Hillary, et al, what stupid things not to say?
If the only thing telegraphing the campaign’s unforced errors to Her Royal Clintoness is me writing about it, then the pro-RKBA side is actually doing much better than I feared!
Fear is an imposition. +\-
“…studying whether “engaged in the business” could be defined with, say, a threshold number of guns sold — say, 50 or 100 per year. ”
No, officer, I haven’t sold any guns this year. Why do you ask?
So the Big 0 is a lefty…. gee, who knew?
The Clinton’s are worried about the law? Not when they have F-Troop (BATFE) as their lackeys and enforcers. And then you can add the welfare-to-work wannabe agency the TSA.
If a gang banger sold a few guns to one of his buddy gang bangers, whats the difference, who cares? The guns are still probably stolen, and are remaining in the gang.
Buy ammo!! A gun is nothing but a club without ammo. Just in case I did not say that right BUY AMMO!!!
Any politician that has voted for gun control has committed treason and a breach of contract. He/she swore an oath to defend the Constitution. THAT is a verbal contract. By breaking that oath he/she is in breach of contract and can be sued in a tort action. Go for it, someone should get some money out of it and it will hurt him/her and maybe shut him/her up. No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com