I thought I would take the time to point out why Obama's ideas of common sense do not mesh with the reality of the world.
Here is a summation of each of the executive orders that he signed today.
Read President Obama's New, Proposed Executive Orders and Legislation on Guns
Now let us see how common sense they are.
- We have had background checks for decades, for as long as I can remember, which is a lot longer than I care to admit. If the government hasn't figured out how to share the necessary data yet, this is not going to fix it. If they have, why haven't they been doing this already?
- First off, legal barriers cannot be eliminated by executive decree. Second, those barriers are there to protect the privacy of people who have not broken any laws. Third, the reason it was necessary to create those barriers was that the government requires people to violate their own right to privacy to in the first place.
- Improve the incentives for states, AKA bribe them with tax money. Once again, this has to come from Congress, he can't just decide to spend money because he wants to spend money. By the way, if the states haven't already jumped on the bandwagon despite the decades of federal bribery what makes Obama think a few billion more is going to make a difference?
- Direct the AG to review categories of people... People come in categories now? How many categories exist? What are they? What if someone walks into the wrong category?
- Propose new rules. Something he can actually do, except I see no reason anyone should have to submit to a check if the government illegally seizes their property. What was that? You don't see anything about illegal seizure of property? Simple question, if the seizure was legal in the first place, why do the assholes have to return it?
- Have the ATF write a letter. Let me repeat that, have the ATF write a letter. A-*******-mazing, why didn't I think of that?
- A national safe and responsible gun ownership program. What should we call it? How about the NRA?
- Have the CSPC review standards for gun locks and safes. Why, have they proven to be defective? Are people accidentally firing gun safes and killing their children? Maybe they put the gun lock on their car by mistake?
- Require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. Excuse me? Are we not doing this now? Why do we have serial numbers on guns? Who the **** does he think he is talking to?
- Release a report on lost and stolen guns and make it available to law enforcement. That one speaks for itself, doesn't it? Can anyone explain why we kept the report classified in the first place?
- Nominate an ATF director. Gee willikers Wally, what a novel idea. I thought that was what he did with Todd Jones two years ago, I must be remembering wrong.
- Train police for active shooter situations. Umm, what?
- Start enforcing the existing laws. Gee, I wonder why no one ever suggested that before.
- Direct the CDC to investigate gun violence. This is probably the worst of the lot, violence is not a disease, and asking the CDC to investigate it as such is nothing but propaganda. They don't know enough about criminology to study the issue, if he was serious about it he would give this to the FBI, but they might come up with a solution that does not involve banning guns.
- Have the Attorney General tell the private sector all about the stuff the private sector invented. I am speechless.
- Tell people what they already know, Obamacare lets doctors ask questions about things that have nothing to do with health care, which will allow states to report who has guns. (See number 2)
- Tell doctors that federal law lets them report threats of violence, even if they are not credible.
- Give money to schools to hire armed guards. I thought this was a dumb idea because it came from the NRA.
- Centrally pan for emergencies so that people who actually know what the local problems are have no say.
- Write a letter to states about Medicaid, because they, obviously, never heard of it before.
- Make Obamacare more complicated by making up new rules about mental health coverage.
- Commit to making final regulations about mental health parity. Weren't those supposed to be done last year?
- Talk about mental health on a national level, because no one has ever talked about it before.
No common sense, no serious attempt to determine what the problem is, nothing but the intent to make things better through conversation and a commitment to get the job done.
I don't know about anyone else, but I feel so much better.