Obama Budget Exposes Depth Of Hostility To Gun Rights, American People :: 02/21/2012

Yesterday, Emily Miller of the Washington Times wrote that President Obama's proposed 2013 budget would reverse an effort by Congress to rein in the executive branch's "gunwalking" :

In November, the president signed the Justice Department appropriations bill, which included language from Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, prohibiting federal agencies from facilitating the transfer of an operable firearm to an individual known or suspected to be in a drug cartel, unless they monitor the weapon at all times.

Now Mr. Obama is proposing to remove that provision from the 2013 spending bill, thus making it legal to revive gun-walking operations in the future.

The White House defends this deletion by claiming that it's "not necessary." Perhaps not, but that doesn't explain why it must go, especially when one considers how much noise has been made about other administrations' supposed "gunwalking" --even if it's (now) "not necessary" to stop the Obama administration from doing it, what about future administrations? Actually, though, never mind that. As National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea said shortly after the measure was originally added to the DoJ appropriations bill, "That'll stop it! You know, another law . . . "

Instead, let's look at some of the other gun related changes Ms. Miller found in the proposed budget. First, though, a note--reading through the bill (large pdf file), one can find the exact language that we are saying Obama intends to delete, as Mr. Codrea pointed out yesterday . This caused some confusion, until Ms. Miller pointed out that the disputed language is contained in brackets, meaning that it is to be deleted. This is indeed explained on page eight of the budget (emphasis added):

Accounts included in the enacted 2012 appropriations bills are printed in roman type as a base. Brackets enclose material that is proposed for deletion; italic type indicates proposed new language.

So, what else would Obama change?

For one, he once again wants the power to block importation of or destroy surplus M1 Garand rifles and M1 carbines--as has been discussed before . This had not long ago seemed at least partially settled (the Garands were to be allowed, but not the carbines, because of their "high capacity" magazines).

Obama would also like to be able to destroy the military's once-fired cartridge brass, rather than resell it to the civilian market for reloading (a very poor idea just from a monetary standpoint, since the reusable brass is worth about four times as much as the destroyed scrap, and you don't have to pay to "demilitarize" it first). This was another issue

Finally, he wants to be able to use taxpayer's money to fund junk science "studies" supporting more restrictive gun laws .