President Barack Obama is poised this week to use another executive order to tinker with background checks on guns that he knows will have almost no measurable effect on gun crime in the country today.
His statement during a weekly radio address last week indicated his lack of commitment on doing anything that would really help.
"We know we can't stop every act of violence," Obama said. "But what if we tried to stop even one? What if Congress did something, anything, to protect our kids from gun violence?"
Something? Anything? That's no way to govern. Governing is working seriously with Congress on what can get done, something the president has refused to do in all manner of legislation. An executive order is simply a piece of paper that carries with it the temporary effects of a law but can be undone on the first day in office of the next president.
Were he of a mind to, though, the president and Congress could create a variety of laws surrounding gun sales such as restricting small-scale or part-time dealers from obtaining licenses or adding types of background checks, but they wouldn't make a dent in the problem.
Obama knows most gun crime is not committed by people who buy guns from dealers or gun shows or by people who are willing to submit to background checks.
He also knows he doesn't have the support for gun restrictions from the majority of the American people, who have bought record numbers of firearms during his administration because of what they believe is his lack of enforcing the current laws in the country.
"His first impulse is always to take rights away from law-abiding citizens, and it's wrong," Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said on "Fox News Sunday." "And to use executive powers he doesn't have is a pattern that is quite dangerous. It's not a surprise that people don't believe that our government is working on their behalf anymore."
Studies have shown most people who wind up in prison on gun crimes usually get them through theft, the black market, or from friends or family. Other studies have said only 3 to 11 percent of criminals bought their guns legally.
The United States has a gun problem, but the overwhelming problem is not legally owned guns. Concentrate on illegal guns and make a difference.