And so it begins.

Wait, what begins? Well, this blog, first of all.  Second, well, here it is: http://www.policymic.com/articles/22390/obama-may-make-executive-order-on-gun-control-president-would-make-policy-without-using-congress

This is the (possible) beginning of intense Federal gun restrictions. The article tries to be unbiased (good), but its leftward tilt seeps through in its selective reporting of statistics (bad). There are a few flaws with both the idea (executive order) and the article itself (misinterpretation and poor reporting of crime statistics).

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's do this piece-by-piece. First of all, the use of executive orders is entirely outside the scope of the Constitution. Presidents used them every now and then, but their use really took off with Theodore Roosevelt, and it's been downhill since then. Now, an executive order enforcing some form of gun control? That's unconstitutional on multiple levels. First, as mentioned, the executive order is in itself illegal. Second, the Federal government - even Congress - has no Constitutional authority to restrict firearms (or anything else, for that matter), even less so the President acting by himself; such regulation is a state issue. Third, well, the Second Amendment makes it pretty clear that the Federal Government cannot infringe on the right to bear arms. I know, I know, it's a tired cliche, but that doesn't make it less true. Again, it's a state issue, not Federal.

Now, for the misinterpretation. The author briefly makes fun of the Drudge Report headline featuring Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler. First, it should be noted that both of them embarked on mass disarmament before they committed their atrocities, though extrapolating this to Obama's possible action is quite the stretch. However, it's fairly clear from context that the dictatorship theme is purely referencing the idea that the President can make laws on a whim - there, the comparison becomes entirely accurate. We have a Republic, not a monarchy.

As for the selective reporting of crime stats, the author is correct in the percentage of firearm-related homicides. However, the big current push is to ban "assault" weapons (that is, normal rifles that look scary). In this context, integrity would demand that the author acknowledge the fact that rifle homicides are incredibly rare, and are in fact significantly outnumbered by homicides using knives/blades, fists/feet, and hammers/clubs. They are a statistical anomaly, and "assault" weapons account for 1% of homicides. By the way, these stats are from the FBI, not Alex Jones. The vast majority of homicides are committed using small, cheap handguns (especially quiet little .22s), which means that any ban on AR-15s and the like would have no discernable impact on crime rates. We tried it in 1994 - it didn't work.