President Obama Issues Executive Orders Targeting Firearms

On August 29, 2013, the Obama administration announced two Executive Orders that will restrict the importation and domestic transfers of certain classes of firearms. These two Executive Orders operate as law by fiat, not subject to Congressional concurrence.

One Executive Order bans the re-importation of surplus U.S.-made rifles, including M1 Garands and M1 Carbines. Such rifles are used in Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) competitions. For decades the CMP has sold M1 Garands and M1 Carbines, many re-imported from arsenals overseas, to qualified American shooters. The White House stated: “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.”

It is unclear how this Executive Order will enhance public safety, since FBI crime statistics show that such vintage arms are virtually never employed in the commission of crimes. Professor John R. Lott Jr., former chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission, observes: “Despite the scary rhetoric, the White House is leaving out one important point: it isn’t pointing to any cases where imported U.S.-made military weapons have been used in a crime. And the reason is obvious: there probably aren’t any.”

The second Executive Order changes the rules on acquisition and transfers of National Fireams Act (NFA) firearms (such as machine guns) and other NFA items (such as sound moderators) through Corporations and Firearms Trusts. When sold to individuals, such items do require background checks. However, the White House claimed: “At present, when the weapon is registered to a trust or corporation, no background check is run. ATF reports that last year alone, it received more than 39,000 requests for transfers of these restricted firearms to trusts or corporations.” It is the intent of this Executive Order to block a significant number of NFA transfers to Firearms Trusts and Corporations. Again, it is unclear how the new restrictions on NFA transfers will reduce crime. In fact, BearingArms.com asserts that: “Only two [registered] NFA machine guns — neither of which were acquired via gun trusts — have been used in murders in 79 years.”

Professor Lott challenges the need for changes to the NFA Laws as they pertain to corporations: “Again, the Obama administration doesn’t provide examples of people using a corporation to register handguns or semi-automatic rifles as a way to bypass criminal background checks. More importantly, it fails to point to any cases where such guns have been used in crimes. Yes, when registered to a corporation, any officer is allowed to possess the machine gun, but [the transfer] still requires a NICS check for the person actually picking up the gun.” READ Lott Commentary.

Thoughts On Executive Orders — by Tony Chow
It’s important to realize that the anti-gun people aren’t interested in gun control as a practical measure to combat “gun violence” or achieve “gun safety”. They are animated above all by a reflexive dislike of guns, and an abhorrence of the very notion of an armed citizenry. Their motives are ideological, rather than practical. To them, it doesn’t matter whether a type of firearm is used in crimes or not; the only good gun is a banned gun. This explains why the efforts in the 70s and 80s to restrict handguns, which still account for the vast majority of gun crimes, were abandoned in favor of an assault on “assault weapons”, .50-caliber rifles, and now, vintage “military-style” rifles and already heavily-restricted NFA weapons — firearms that, though used infrequently or not at all in crimes, are easy to describe in scary terms to the general public.

Tony Chow is a target shooter who competes in smallbore and 300-meter disciplines.