Obama May Have Gone Too Far: He Just Got Blasted With A Major Lawsuit That Could Hurt…
The first lawsuit has been filed challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s executive actions concerning gun control, which he announced earlier this month.
Conservative attorney Larry Klayman filed a suit in federal district court in Florida which accuses the president of seeking to circumvent the legislative process and invent new gun laws in violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers.
“The president states that he is doing so purely because he does not like the legislative decisions of the Congress,” argues Klayman, the founder of Freedom Watch.
“These actions are unconstitutional abuses of the president’s and executive branch’s role in our nation’s constitutional architecture and exceed the powers of the president as set forth in the U.S. Constitution,” he continues.
Klayman further contends that the president’s actions unlawfully infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. “The Defendants’ rewriting of laws burdening and abridging the fundamental rights of the Plaintiff and other U.S. citizens under the Second Amendment by the President and his executive branch is unconstitutional…”
One of the new gun control measures announced by the president two weeks ago redefines what it means to be in the business of selling guns to include non-gun dealers.
Federally licensed gun dealers are required to perform background checks on those seeking to purchase firearms, while private individuals selling them to each other have not been required to do so. The majority of guns are sold through licensed dealers.
Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano believes that this move is an unconstitutional power grab by Obama and will be struck down by the courts:
Congress has expressly removed occasional sales (sales not made by full-time dealers) from the obligation of obtaining federal licenses and from conducting background checks.
The president is without authority to negate the congressional will on this, and any attempt to do so will be invalidated by the courts. Mr. Obama will now require that anyone who sells a gun, that is even an “occasional” seller will be required to perform a background check. By defining what an “occasional seller” is, the president is essentially interpreting the law, a job reserved for the courts.
The courts will ignore his interpretation, and impose their own.
Napolitano pointed out that Congress on three occasions has chosen not to change the law in the way Obama stated his administration will now interpret it.
Klayman’s suit “is believed to be the first in what is expected to become a series of legal challenges over Obama’s gun orders,” The Hill reports.
“I want my constitutional rights respected and look to the courts to do the right thing,” Klayman wrote for WorldNetDaily. “Obama, as was true with his illegal immigration executive orders, cannot be allowed to act like a king.”
h/t: The Hill