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.