If Congress refuses to act to end this epidemic of gun violence, I'll take administrative action to do so. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 5, 2015
Well, we all knew this was in Hillary Clinton’s goodie bag: executive orders on gun control. Last October, Clinton said she would consider executive actions on background checks. Around that same time, it appears the Clinton campaign was also specifying areas in which these executive orders would apply to, in particular the so-called gun show loophole. The emails from the recent Wikileask document dump point to this, with John Anzalone of Anzalone Liszt Grove Research—a Democratic polling firm—forwarding transcript from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes over the Second Amendment at the time. The email chain includes key Clinton campaign aides and advisers, with spokesperson Brian Fallon chiming in saying [emphasis mine]:
Circling back around on guns as a follow up to the Friday morning discussion: the Today show has indicated they definitely plan to ask bout guns, and so to have the discussion be more of a news event than her previous times discussing guns, we are going to background reporters tonight on a few of the specific proposals she would support as President - universal background checks of course, but also closing the gun show loophole by executive order and imposing manufacturer liability.
On August 17, James O’Keefe of Project Veritas went undercover at a $2,700-a-head fundraiser at the home of Amy Rao and Harry Plant in Palo Alto, California in support of Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Russ Feingold, who is mounting a comeback for his old seat. It’s here that Feingold says that Clinton might have to enact executive orders on gun policy.
A Project Veritas journalist asked Feingold “If there’s still Republican control in congress, and if Hillary is elected, is there anything she can do to…?”
“Well, there might be executive order,” replied Feingold.
“He [President Obama] did some executive order with the aspects of waiting periods. But what we all need is to win the Senate, have her there, and then put pressure on the House. And we might win the House.”
Amy Rao, the host of the fundraiser, said, “Hillary wants to shut it down.”
“She wants to shut it down. You think she will?” asked O’Keefe.
“If we can get guns away from everyone in this country, she’ll close the loopholes get rid of assault weapons, she will get rid of being able to buy you know unlimited bullets, she’s gonna make all that stop,” replied Rao.
Rao does admit that not every gun will be confiscated since there’s a Second Amendment, “but you even get sensible gun laws passed, and Obama didn’t do it. If anyone can do it, she’ll do it.”
Before we get into what some of these West Coast donors were caught saying about Feingold’s position on guns, let’s point out that what Ms. Rao said is entirely unconstitutional—and there is no gun show loophole. There is no special carve out for licensed dealers to simply not conduct background checks on prospective buyers at gun shows. That’s an abject lie. Stephen Gutowski at The Washington Free Beacon has written about this ad nauseum:
…Gun shows and online sales enjoy no special carve-out or loophole. Under federal law, all sales through commercial gun dealers, known as Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs), must be processed through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Background Check System regardless of whether the sale was made at a gun shop, gun show, or over the Internet. Similarly, sales of used guns between private parties living in the same state are not required, under federal law, to go through the background check system regardless of where the sale occurs.
A small number of states do require sales between private parties to submit to background checks.
Yet, back to Feingold, he spoke further at the August fundraiser.
“But what I do is go with the majority view of the people of the state, which is very common sense. They believe there should be background checks. Overwhelmingly, they believe there should be background checks for the Internet and for gun shows.”
Not entirely controversial, right? I mean, any Second Amendment supporter would disagree since it’s not entirely factual, but some of the people in the Rao home felt Russ was being soft on firearms.
“I wanted him to be stronger,” said Leah Russin, a Feingold donor. “Nobody needs a frickn’ handgun.”
Now, that’s the pompous, condescending West Coast liberal ethos we’ve been waiting to hear.
O’Keefe, playing along, says, “I don’t understand that, I understand hunting, I get it, it’s something people do, but it don’t get why he would defend handguns.”
“He wants to be elected. He is from Wisconsin,” said Russin.
And folks, that’s why we can’t trust Democrats, and their supporters, on guns. Pretty much—we can’t trust the Left on anything and we shouldn’t.