Presidential Executive Orders

Well, it’s blog writing time again.  After playing a couple of games of spider solitaire, which came with my computer, to sort of let all of the various subjects whirling around in my head fall into place, I find that they are still whirling.

 

Since my last blog on gun control the President has presented his 23 Executive orders and proposed legislation on four other gun safety measures.  The radical right wing has gone bonkers over this asserting that President Obama wants to take away our Second Amendment right to own a gun, which of course is hog wash.

 

It has occurred to me why the radical right is freaking out over some gun safety laws that do not include a seizure of guns, but said absolutely nothing when George W. when he issued Executive Order # 13438.  The following is from an article from SLATE online discussing the Bush Orders that should be gotten rid of immediately by Obama.  Obama scrapped these immediately after being sworn in.

 

SLATE

The top Bush executive orders that Obama should scrap immediately.

Emily Brazelon and Chris Wilson

1/20/09

 What it says: This order grants the administration the power to freeze the assets of an abstract but broadly defined group of people who threaten the stability of Iraq. The list of targeted people includes anyone who has propagated (or helped to propagate) violence in Iraq in an effort to destabilize the reconstruction. Most ominously, it also applies to anyone who poses a "significant risk of committing" a future act of violence to that end. The order, which applies to anyone in the United States or in U.S. control abroad, also declares, "Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited." The order appears to acknowledge that it could conflict with constitutional protections but then states that targets of its provisions do not need to be notified ahead of time that their assets will be frozen. (Emphasis mine)

Why it should go: The Fifth Amendment has a few interesting things to say about the seizure of property without due process—namely, you can't do it. While this is far from the first time the Bush administration has trampled constitutional rights in the name of national security, this order, if broadly interpreted, could target war protesters in the United States. Then-White House spokesman Tony Snow said at the time that it was intended to target terrorists and insurgents, but the language of the order is vaguer. This EO drew condemnation from all ideological directions, from Swift-boater Jerome Corsi to the ACLU. One needn't be a civil libertarian to see the danger of the order's loose definitions or wonder why we needed the order in the first place. Bonus: The next month, Bush issued a similar order targeting mischief-makers in Lebanon and their supporters. That one can go, too.

Now this Executive Order was a direct violation of the Fifth Amendment dealing with private property, and hardly anyone knew about it.  When one got into the order, I believe it was Section 4 although this is from memory and thus may be inaccurate, it not only allowed for the confiscation of assets, but the freezing or confiscation of the assets of anyone attempting to assist the targeted person, including their family!  Merely attempting to make our country a safer place to live by instituting some safety measures around guns, the sale of guns, and who can safely own them is a small drip compared to the confiscation of one’s private assets and property, and the threat of same for anyone, including one’s children, from helping.  Now that was a scary time. 

Now is not.  In fact, if all of President Obama’s gun safety measures are approved by Congress, all of our lives will be much safer from a freak out by someone with an assault weapon, multiple bullet magazine, and no ability to make rational decisions.

Call your Congress member and urge him or her to support these common sense safety measures.