Give Obama Some Credit?

I’ll be the first to give President Obama credit. He’s not a tyrant after all—just a grossly incompetent president who wishes he could exercise the authority of a dictator. Obama is restrained by something, and I won’t shy away from admitting that I believe that restrain is indeed supernatural, providential restraint. Obama acted entirely within the law using his executive powers to direct the ATF, FBI, and other federal agencies.

In essence, all the president did was ask the ATF to do its job. He didn’t set a magical number on gun sales making people suddenly “engaged in the business”, in part due to the problems I pointed out in my previous article yesterday.

Obama made it easier for you to buy machine guns, short barreled rifles, silencers, and the like. He did remove the trust exemption from NFA item background checks, but by removing the chief law enforcement officer sign-off requirement, he obviated the actual need for trusts. Trusts became popular because a corporation (which a trust is), can’t be fingerprinted, background checked, and don’t need the approval of a potentially hostile chief of police or sheriff’s signature. Many anti-gun cops have sunk NFA item applications over the year. In Nevada, for instance, the only real problem is the local constabulary (I’m looking at you Sheriff Lombardo) approving the paperwork in less than 30 days.

All in all, pretty much nothing changed. Now if you’re somebody who sells guns privately to make a living, you might be concerned the ATF is going to start paying more attention to you. Do yourself a favor and go get an FFL, a business license, and pay taxes like the rest of us.

So yes, I will give Obama credit for not going full-retard and declaring all guns illegal. It was a long-shot in any case, but there was some question at how much infringing he would do. The rest of his proposals are crap, but other writers cover those better than I could. In short, while Obama would sign any anti-gun bill the Congress would pass, he’s not quite a tyrant and begrudgingly respects the law. America is a land where law rules, even if it gets a little murky at time. I will give my due respects to the president for being a bigger man than most of us would give him credit for.

Hillary, on the other hand, will probably be the end of us all.