Obama Announces More Executive Actions on Guns

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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/29/obama-announces-more-executive-actions-on-guns/

 Aug. 29, 2013 10:27am Fred Lucas

Unable to get gun control legislation through Congress, the Obama administration announced two new executive actions Thursday – one to “close a loophole,” another to block importation of surplus military weapons.

The announcements come the same day that Vice President Joe Biden – who has spearheaded the administration’s anti-gun efforts since the school massacre in Newtown, Conn. in December — is set to do a ceremonial swearing-in of B. Todd Jones, who was confirmed by the Senate as the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The two new executive actions are on top of 23 previous executive actions announced by President Barack Obama after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.

Under current law, the administration says that machine guns and short barreled shotguns must be registered and an individual must undergo a fingerprint-based background check to purchase the gun.

“At present, when the weapon is registered to a trust or corporation, no background check is run,” a White House news release said Thursday morning. “ATF reports that last year alone, it received more than 39,000 requests for transfers of these restricted firearms to trusts or corporations.”
The ATF is proposing a new regulation to change this. A regulatory rule does not require congressional authorization, but does go through a review process by the agency.

“The proposed rule requires individuals associated with trusts or corporations that acquire these types of weapons to undergo background checks, just as these individuals would if the weapons were registered to them individually,” the White House release said.

The administration also announced a new policy to prevent the importation of surplus military weapons, stating that since 2005, the federal government authorized requests to reimport more than 250,000 such weapons for private purchases.

“When the United States provides military firearms to its allies, either as direct commercial sales or through the foreign military sales or military assistance programs, those firearms may not be imported back into the United States without U.S. government approval, the White House said.

“Today, the Administration is announcing a new policy of denying requests to bring military-grade firearms back into the United States to private entities, with only a few exceptions such as for museums,” the White House announcement said. “This new policy will help keep military-grade firearms off our streets.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/08/29/Obama-Disarms-America-and-Arms-the-World

As President Barack Obama has outwardly attempted to curtail Americans’ Constitutional Second Amendment right to bear arms, his Administration has approved huge increases in defense spending and export sales. The Administration is now seeking to eliminate stringent State Department controls on exports and foreign licensing of dozens of categories of weapons and technology from the United States Munitions List (USML) by transferring control to the pro-business Commerce Department.

In spite of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warnings this change could increase terrorist access to dangerous weapons, the Administration claims this “reform” would enhance “the competitiveness of key United States manufacturing and technology sectors.”

It may seem hypocritical to tighten gun control at home and flood the world with weapons. But since Obama was elected president, Democrats have eliminated Republicans’ advantage in collecting defense industry campaign contributions.

President Obama has tried to push Congress into passing extensive domestic gun control legislation. In Obama's first four years in office he also used his regulatory powers for the federal government to conduct about the same number of background checks on gun owners and prospective buyers as George W. Bush's in his first six years in office.

Declaring a national gun control crisis after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in January 2013, the Administration issued 23 executive orders directing federal agencies to “improve knowledge of the causes of firearm violence, what might help prevent it, and how to minimize its burden on public health.” According to the Institute of Medicine, “One of these orders directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to identify the most pressing problems in firearm violence a committee tasked with developing a potential research agenda that focuses on the causes of, possible interventions to, and strategies to minimize the burden of firearm-related violence.”

It seems clear that the goal of this Presidential Executive Order is to instruct the CDC to fund medical research to “prove” that gun owners are afflicted with some pathological disease or mental defect.

The President may have been visibly advocating gun control in America, but he has been a huge cheerleader for expanding the American defense industry. Since 2008, U.S. defense spending grew by 25% to $900 billion; defense exports grew by 30% to $73 billion; and foreign licensing agreements grew 46% to approximately $50 billion.

Prior to Barack Obama, Republicans dominated campaign contributions from the defense industry. But despite John McCain’s reputation as a defense hawk, Obama pocketed twice as much from the defense industry as McCain in 2008. Over the last three elections, the Democrats have pulled even with Republicans in campaign contributions by raising $32 million from the defense industry.

But with the Budget Sequestration expected to cause U.S. defense spending to fall to $820 billion over the next three years, the boom times for the defense industry seemed at risk. This may explain the Obama Administration’s enthusiasm for defense industry Export Control Reform. Given that the U.S. already accounts for 80% of the global market for items currently covered by the restrictive USML, eliminating State Department restrictive reviews would quickly ramp up defense industry orders.

In 2011, the most recent year a breakdown of statistics are available, the U.S. defense industry booked foreign arms sales worth over $66.3 billion, representing 78.7% of all global arms exports. The next closest competitor was Russia, with 5.6% of the world arms market. The State Department approved export licenses that year under 20 categories from the USML worth $44.2 billion. The largest categories by dollar value were aircraft, $17.2 billion; military electronics, $15.2 billion; fire and guidance control equipment, $2.4 billion; tanks and military vehicles, $1.7 billion; spacecraft systems and associated equipment, $1.4 billion; and ammunition and ordnance, $1.1 billion.

Despite GAO concerns that reform could increase terrorist’s access to sophisticated weapons, the Administration wants to switch two dozen categories of weapons from rigorous U.S. State Department oversight under the USML to the export-friendly Commerce Department Control List. The White House acknowledges, “At the end of this process, we anticipate that a significant percentage of the items that are transferred off of the USML would be permitted to be exported without a license.”

It seems hypocritical to simultaneously tighten guns control in the U.S. and flood the world with weapons. But Barack Obama and the Democrats figured out that the big campaign contributions regarding guns comes from the defense industry, not individual Americans who worry about the loss of their Second Amendment rights.