Executive Orders: President Obama reverses President Clinton's brand of gun control, but the goal is the same

The tactics employed by President Obama’s in his latest executive orders, purportedly done in the name of preventing crimes committed with guns, represent a reversal of gun control strategy used by Bill Clinton and his then-Treasury Secretary Lloyd Benson, supposedly done with the exact same goal in mind.

During his administration, President Clinton set about to tackle the crime problem by reducing sales of guns. He attempted to do this by pushing federal firearms licensees (FFLs) out of business through the imposition of new fees and regulations. Clinton managed to reduce the number of FFLs - the licensed gun dealers that do background checks on every gun they sell - from nearly 300,000 gun dealers in 1993 to only 104,000 by the time he left office. Gun sales and ownership rose in spite of those actions.

A new generation of anti-gun Democrats have been waging war on gun rights since then, and their powerful friends are taking a new tack: trying to force more people who deal in guns to obtain an FFL so that more background checks will be performed.

Like Clinton before him, Obama claims he is trying to get more gun sales on paper and through a background check, keeping guns out of the wrong hands and reducing violence. But one only needs to look at what else his administration has done to judge their interest in fighting crime. They are cutting prison sentences and releasing criminals while acknowledging there will be a high rate of recidivism. They are encouraging illegal aliens to flood our country despite knowing they commit more crimes. They have thrown gasoline on racial tensions in every opportunity since the incident between police and Professor Henry Louis Gates (leading to the infamous “beer summit”), and helping to turn other events like Ferguson, MO deadly and destructive. If they really want to reduce crime, why are they exacerbating it everywhere else?

The current administration are also the same people who flooded Mexico with firearms during the BATFE's Operation “Fast and Furious,” which followed a Fox News report which debunked the president’s claim that 90% of crime guns in Mexico came from the U.S.A. The operation began within weeks of Fox's William La Jeunesse going to Mexico to research it and finding that the number that could be traced to the U.S. was less than 17%. Soon after, hundreds of people, maybe more, were killed with those “Fast and Furious" guns. The only possible reason to arm criminals with these weapons was to cause carnage and calls for more gun control - some effort to reduce violence!

So, if this new push is not about background checks, what is it about? Anti-gun rights news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, NY Daily, Salon.com, etc. are clear enough: they are calling for repeal of the Second Amendment and confiscation of all firearms! But those in Washington D.C. who want this sort of confiscation are faced with a huge problem: how to do that in a nation with over 300 million firearms when they don’t know where they are?

Obama's executive actions may help them find many. The White House now suggests a person is in the business of selling guns if they sell two or more a year, and therefore that they need to be licensed. When you thus force most collectors to get a license, you have just ensured that most gun sales will be recorded on a federal form 4473. If the licensee later goes out of business (or is forced out, for example, by the next Clinton administration), the dealer is legally forced to turn over the record of those purchases to the BATFE, just as many did during the Clinton years. After a while, the feds will have located the vast bulk of firearms in the United States, making confiscation all the easier. You won’t even have to go door-to-door; just send out a letter to the effect of:

Dear Mr. Smith:

We know you have a Smith and Wesson Model 10, a Colt AR 15 and a Remington 870 shotgun. Turn them in within 7 days or face arrest.

Your's truly,

The BATFE

Most people will buckle under such a threat and give up without resistance. That is how liberty dies, my friends.

The NRA has threatened to fight this executive action in the courts. Let’s get behind them and help them in that fight. Please join, renew, or upgrade your membership NOW, and don't forget to give generously to the NRA-ILA.

Tim Inwood is a Past President of the Clinton County Farmers and Sportsmen Association, an Endowment Member of the NRA and Life Member of the OGCA, a member of the Board of Directors of the OGCA, Chairman of the Clinton County Republican Party, and a volunteer for Buckeye Firearms Association.