Abuse of Power -- Clinton Gun Diktat Usurps Congress' Authority
The Manchester Union Leader
April 8, 1998 Richard Lessner
It is not going too far to say that Bill Clinton increasingly behaves like a dictator. He clearly prefers to govern by executive order, of which he has issued more than any previous President.
The latest Clinton diktat usurps the authority of Congress to make laws. By executive order, Mr. Clinton has banned the import of 59 firearms. That the President has no such constitutional or statutory authority has become an irrelevancy. Unless such an arbitrary exercise of executive power is resisted, it becomes established by custom and usage.
If Congress does not rescind Mr. Clinton's dictatorial action, then perhaps the federal courts, by means of a lawsuit, will act to restrain this runaway President. Several groups are contemplating such a lawsuit.
In a constitutional Republic, the ends do not justify the means. However noble or desirable the end of Mr. Clinton's unilateral action against so-called "assault weapons" -- and we do not for a moment agree with his misguided notions -- a well-meaning objective cannot trump the Constitution. We are a nation of laws, not men.
Moreover, Mr. Clinton's decree is the worst kind of political pandering. Any weapon used to assault someone becomes an "assault weapon," whether it is a military-style firearm, an expensive hunting rifle or a cheap "Saturday night special." Neither does the Second Amendment make any reference to hunting or sport shooting, as Mr. Clinton imagines.
The right to bear arms, in fact, has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with the people's right to defend themselves -- even against a tyrannical government. If the gun control advocates desire to find hunting and sport shooting in the Constitution, then let them put such in the Constitution by the process of amending it, not by dishonestly pretending to find things in the document that plainly are not there.
The anti-gun hysteria notwithstanding, relatively few crimes are committed with so-called "assault weapons." Excluding murders that are the byproducts of another crime, such as armed robbery, the U.S. averages just 21 multiple-victim public shootings a year. Of the 19,600 people murdered since 1996, fewer than 0.02 percent of the victims died in multiple public shootings of the kind in which assault weapons allegedly would be the firearms of choice.
One of the best kept secrets is that an armed citizenry is the best deterrent to crime. In states with permissive concealed carry laws, multiple shootings have declined by 84 percent and deaths by 90 percent. According to Prof. John Lott of the University of Chicago Law School, armed citizens use guns 2.5 million times a year to defend themselves or to stop crimes before they occur. Despite the fevers of the gun control mob, an armed citizenry produces less crime and greater public safety.
The Union Leader
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