TRUMP FORGETS HIS PLEDGE TO SUPPORT SECOND AMENDMENT; CAPITULATING TO ANTI-GUN CROWD
BY ROGER KATZ
SEE: https://www.ammoland.com/2019/01/trump-forgets-his-pledge-to-support-second-amendment-capitulating-to-antigun-crowd/;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Donald Trump At National Rifle Association (NRA) Conference (5/20/2016)
As if the Republican controlled Senate’s failure to enact national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation and President Trump’s failure to push forward a pro-Second Amendment agenda during his first two years in Office weren’t bad enough—a serious failure of omission on the part of both the U.S. Senate and the President—Trump’s ban on“bump stocks”—an act of commission—is even worse. By foolishly, impetuously, acting to ban “bump stocks,” the President demonstrates a dangerous naivety and ineptitude, along with a disturbingly blithe lack of concern for the well-being of the fundamental, immutable, unalienable, inviolate right of the American people to keep and bear arms. Trump is obviously oblivious to the deleterious impact his unilateral action shall have—not simply may have—on the Second Amendment itself.
President Trump’s failure to cajole Congress to action, to strengthen our most cherished and important right, is unacceptable. That failure deserves our condemnation. But undermining our most cherished right is alarming and unforgivable. That deserves our lasting contempt. With the radical Left urging Democratic Party House members to impeach Trump, upon issuance of the Special Counsel’s, Robert Mueller’s, report that is due out at any time now, the President can ill afford to antagonize his own base; but Trump has done just that with his flagrant attack on the Second Amendment.
Trump should have left the matter of bump stocks to Congress. Congress, acting through its Article 1 legislative power, can, conceivably, lawfully, take such action to ban them, if it sought to do so, assuming—a big “if”—that the law, depending on the matter of its statutory construction, does not run afoul of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But it is not for the President to take that action upon himself under any set of circumstances. We have a system of checks and balances in our Country, and for good reason.
Congress makes the law. That power is within the province of Congress, not the President. The President’s duty is to faithfully execute the laws Congress enacts. Under our Constitution, the President has no authority to make binding law, in lieu of Congress. Unlike Great Britain and Australia, the Chief Executive has no authority to self-execute laws. The President does not serve as both Chief Executive and “Legislator in Chief.”
We have seen how Obama had shown a marked, carefree proclivity to ignore the federal Government’s system of “checks and balances” that the founders of our Republic wisely conceived of and assiduously placed into our Constitution. As Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4, makes crystal clear, it is the province of Congress to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Obama, as President, and, no less a lawyer and academician, knew this. Yet, that did not prevent him from unlawfully promulgating and implementing his infamous, illegal “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA), policy, along with the concomitant mess it left for his successor, President Trump.
What was Obama’s motive for DACA? As he said, as reported to the Leftist media echo chamber, CNN: “… for years while I was President, I asked Congress to send me such a bill. That bill never came. “Let’s be clear: the action taken today isn’t required legally. It’s a political decision, and a moral question.” Obama proselytized to Americans, talking down to us as if we were children, suggesting that it is he, Obama, “the Great Father,” who shall teach us all what we ostensibly need to know about law, politics, and morality too, audaciously exclaiming that, as Congress didn’t give Obama what he wants—he—Barack Obama, will make law himself!
Obama’s remarks are a textbook example of propaganda, disseminated to the public by an insincere Press. It is bombastic, simplistic, perfunctory rhetoric; absolute drivel. Obama certainly knew it; and so should Press. This smug, duplicitous attitude on the part of both Obama and the Press serves to make Obama’s remarks and the mainstream media’s reporting of them all the more diabolical and reprehensible.
One salient, critical duty of the Chief Executive of the Nation, set down in Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The laws the President is duty-bound to faithfully execute the laws Congress enacts. The President has no power to issue personal edicts, suggesting they have the force of Congressional law, when in fact they don’t, and cannot ever have. As Article 1, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution makes abundantly and absolutely clear: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” There is nothing in Article 1 or in any other Article of the U.S. Constitution reciting that legislative powers, of some sort or another, also vest in the President. Such powers do not invest in the President; only in Congress.
The U.S. Constitution Consists of Fundamental Precepts; Not Simple Platitudes.
Trump, as with Obama before him, has begun to demonstrate a disturbing propensity to ignore precepts of the U.S. Constitution, when he wishes to do so, unmoved by the dictates of either the Constitution or his conscience. His unilateral action banning bump stocks was a calculated move. It is obvious why he took this action. He evidently felt the general public supported it—more of those in favor of it than not. He caved to public pressure to deliver something to the public, because of the worst mass shooting ever to occur in our Nation and an unthinkable tragedy that happened to occur on his watch. That may appear as reason enough to act by some, but Trump should not have fallen prey to the frenzy of the moment, and with such apparent alacrity, abandon, and smug self-assurance.
The continued existence of the natural, fundamental rights set forth in the Bill of Rights are not properly to be left to public whim, and never have been. Public opinion is easily manipulated and ever changeable. The founders of our Republic didn’t intend for the fundamental rights and liberties of the American people to be weakened by mere heat and rancor of a given moment in time. That ought to be clear enough to most Americans if they stop to consider this. It should be clear enough to Congress. And it should be clear enough to the President, too; but apparently it wasn’t. Having taken the action to ban bump stock devices, President Trump did nothing to make this Nation safer. Having bowed to political pressure–something he is, often and admirably enough, not ordinarily inclined to do, but did so in this instance–he reneged on a salient campaign promise he made to millions of Americans, namely that he, like they, fervently and reverently hold the Nation’s Second Amendment in the highest regard, and that he will do his best to preserve and strengthen it. Yet, a ban on bump stock devices does no such thing. Rather, it makes a mockery of Trump’s promise to the American people. Worse, taking the action he did to usurp Congressional authority and prerogative to make law, Trump did much more than simply undermine a campaign pledge; he undermined the very Constitution he swore an oath to preserve and to protect. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution makes plain that,
“Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:—‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’”
Trump did not faithfully execute the office of President of the United States by making up his own law. He doesn’t preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States when he takes upon himself–as did his predecessor Barack Obama–the role the framers of the Constitution reserved alone to Congress, namely the authority to make law. And, Trump certainly doesn't preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, when he undermines the fundamental, immutable, unalienable rights and liberties of the American people as codified in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.
Whether operating through grandiose self-delusion or blatant deceit, a Chief Executive, who fails to adhere to the limitations on his authority, as our Constitution dictates and mandates, significantly threatens the continued well-being of a free Republic. Under no set of circumstances can suspension or abrogation of our Constitution ever be justified.
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*We urge all Americans, who support the Second Amendment, to sign the Petition, to overturn the ATF Rule that bans “bump stocks.”
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