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House passes resolution defying Obama’s gun orders

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The House passed a concurrent resolution Wednesday denouncing the executive orders made by Pres. Barack Obama last month regarding gun control. The resolution asks Congress to fight “executive overreach” because the executive orders “will unquestionably infringe upon American citizens’ constitutionally protected right to firearm ownership.”

The author of the bill, Rep. Jered Taylor, R-Nixa, believes the president has overstepped his bounds.

“It is not the authority of the president to take executive action on gun control,” Taylor said.

Taylor
Taylor

Executive orders, in fact, have no place in the United States Constitution, but presidents since George Washington have used the clause of executive power to “take care the laws have been faithfully executed” with increasing frequency and impact, with peak usage in the early 20th century. One of the most notable executive ordersAbraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, Dwight D. Eisenhower used them them to desegregate schools and Harry S Truman used them to desegregate the armed forces.. But Franklin D. Roosevelt also used an executive order to intern Japanese-American citizens during World War II.

Obama’s actions last month (the details of which can be read here) set off outrage in conservative communities as a subversion of both legislative authority and of the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, while progressives and liberals have argued the measures simply enforce existing laws on background checks and require gun sellers to become licensed.

“None of these points say that he’s going to take your guns away from you,” Rep. Deb Lavender, D-Kirkwood, said during discussion on the resolution. “We talk about what might happen, but it’s not what he said.”

Rep. Paul Curtman, R-Union, read from the Constitution on the floor and argued the real person peddling dangerous guns to unlawful criminals was Obama himself due to actions taken by the administration during Operation Fast and Furious.

“He’s put a lot of guns in the hands of dangerous criminals,” Curtman said. “America’s one of the biggest gun runners in the world, President Obama’s guilty of that.”

The resolution passed on strict party lines.