Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
January 19, 2013
On Wednesday, President Obama signed 23 executive orders. According to the Office of the Press Secretary, those EOs outlined the intentions of the administration as follows:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
Beyond the executive orders, there were a few presidential memorandums to compliment and further implement the Obama administration’s all-out attack on the 2nd Amendment.
Presidential Memorandum, “Tracing of Firearms in Connection with Criminal Investigations” is an “effort ensuring that law enforcement agencies at all levels — Federal, State, and local” are able to trace firearms. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), under the Department of Justice (DoJ), will be charged with this responsibility.
As an “investigative tool”, tracing firearms will (among other things) provide data to the federal government to be used as “valuable intelligence about local, regional, and national patterns relating to the movement and sources of guns.” This is crucial for the “development of enforcement strategies” when investigating crimes and gun trafficking; whether domestic or “across the Southwest border.”
Obama demands that federal agencies trace all gun apprehended because if they did not, they would “not only be depriving themselves of critical information in specific cases, but may also be depriving all Federal, State, and local agencies of the value of complete information for aggregate analyses.”
Agencies identified to respond to firearm tracing are:
• The US State Department
• The US Treasury
• The Department of Defense (DoD)
• The Department of Justice (DoJ)
• The Department of the Interior
• The Department of Agriculture
• The Department of Energy
• The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Presidential Memorandum, “Improving Availability of Relevant Executive Branch Records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System” references the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) which determines “whether an individual is prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm depends on the completeness and accuracy of the information made available to it by Federal, State, and tribal authorities.”
Obama has authorized the DoJ to “issue guidance to agencies regarding the identification and sharing of relevant Federal records and their submission to the NICS.” Those agencies now subject to the DoJ will “submit a report” to the agency explaining their “relevant records” and the drafting of “an implementation plan for making information in those records available to the NICS, consistent with applicable law.”
The NICS Consultation and Coordination Working Group (CCWG) will be established to ensure that the NICS is able to perform adequately and according to the Obama administration’s standards. The CCWG’s function will be to:
• Gathering intelligence and records for the DoJ
• Outline problems in record keeping from other agencies
• Implement notice and relief from disabilities programs
• Correct, modify, or remove records deemed unnecessary
The CCWG will be chaired by the Attorney General and have representatives from:
• DoD
• The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
• The Department of Transportation (DOT)
• VA
• DHS
• The Social Security Administration (SSA)
• The Office of Personal Management (OPM)
• The Office of Management and Budget
• Other agencies designated by the Attorney General
Presidential Memorandum, “Engaging in Public Health Research on the Causes and Prevention of Gun Violence” empowers the Secretary of DHHS and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , as well as “other scientific agencies within” the DHHS to “conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it.”
The Secretary of DHHS will “begin by identifying the most pressing research questions with the greatest potential public health impact, and by assessing existing public health interventions being implemented across the Nation to prevent gun violence.”
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