Teary Obama Won’t Cry For Constitution

‪On Tuesday, President Obama unleashed a disgusting assault on more than half of Americans, suggesting over and over again that if they cared about dead children, they’d simply make way for his gun-control agenda.

To top it off, he shed tears of frustration over the supposed intransigence of his opponents, those nefarious villains who supposedly feel no urgency of the spilled blood of the victims of Sandy Hook. If only everyone could feel what he feels, Obama said, we’d stop fretting about things like our Second Amendment rights.

Those rights, Obama explained, are not in danger. In fact, he respects them! After somberly invoking the memory of “a little boy” slain at Sandy Hook to stump for executive action, Obama then slipped into boredom as he laid for his obligatory respect for the Constitution:

I’ve said this over and over again, this also becomes routine, there is a ritual about this whole thing that I have to do — I believe in the Second Amendment. It’s there written on the paper. It guarantees a right to bear arms. No matter how many times people try to twist my words around — I taught constitutional law, I know a little about this — (applause) — I get it. But I also believe that we can find ways to reduce gun violence consistent with the Second Amendment.

Obama’s knowledge of constitutional law seems to be limited to the theory that the executive branch can act in the absence of legislation. In accordance with the Obama constitution’s “F*** you” clause of Article II, the president can do precisely what he pleases if Congress refuses to act. Not only do elements of Obama’s executive action on guns supersede existing law, they violate Second Amendment protections. Obama’s respect for the Second Amendment hasn’t stopped him from repeatedly cheering Australia’s gun-confiscation regime.

But Obama’s dismissive attitude toward the Constitution didn’t stop at the Second Amendment. He actually suggested that government violations of the First and Fourth Amendments justified government violations of the Second:

I mean, think about it. We all believe in the First Amendment, the guarantee of free speech, but we accept that you can’t yell “fire” in a theater. We understand there are some constraints on our freedom in order to protect innocent people. We cherish our right to privacy, but we accept that you have to go through metal detectors before being allowed to board a plane. It’s not because people like doing that, but we understand that that’s part of the price of living in a civilized society.

Obama says we can trust him with the Second Amendment because he hasn’t violated the First – but he has violated the First Amendment repeatedly.

The “fire in a crowded theater” language was originally coined by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Schenck v. United States, which ruled that the government could prosecute anti-war protesters for handing out flyers against the draft. It’s been repeatedly overruled. But Obama has maintained the original “fire in a crowded theater” definition, mobilizing federal resources to target the “Innocence of Muslims” filmmaker in order to blame him for Benghazi, telling the United Nations that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” blaming Charlie Hebdo for publishing anti-Islam cartoons, and the like. Obama has also run the most anti-free press administration in modern history and consistently calls for an amendment to the First Amendment to ban corporate free-speech. This is the guy we should trust on the Second Amendment?

And how about the Fourth Amendment? Obama compares gun control to metal detectors before boarding airplanes. But flying is not a Constitutional right, and the “administrative search” doctrine that allows such checks at the airport is a complete mess. Besides, Obama’s own respect for the so-called right to privacy ends with using your tax dollars to pay for abortions. The Obama administration has encroached into Fourth Amendment space in unprecedented ways, even while cheering Constitutionally-okayed “stop and frisk” policies in cities like New York. Even Obama’s new executive order falls into questionable “right to privacy” territory under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

This is the constitutional expert we should trust with the Second Amendment?

Obama has always seen the Constitution as an obstacle, whether negotiating with Iran in violation of Congress’ treaty power or whether ramming through executive action on illegal immigration or whether stacking the National Labor Relations Board in violation of law. The list goes on and on.

So, no, you shouldn’t trust Obama to protect your Second Amendment rights. His tears are an emotional trump-card, meant to wash away those dusty parchment guarantees in favor of a richer world in which feelings dictate policy. In Obama’s view, you can’t cry over violations of the Constitution and the death of children – it’s one or the other. And he certainly isn’t crying over violations of the Constitution.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News, Editor-in-Chief of DailyWire.com, and The New York Times bestselling author, most recently, of the book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.