White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that attorneys at the White House and Department of Justice have been determining “what kinds of authorities the president does have to pass executive actions” on gun control and hopefully this determination “something that we could see in relatively short order” during Friday’s White House Press Briefing.
Earnest, in response to a question of what “common sense ideas that the president would have that might make sense in an executive action on guns” pointed to “this idea that there should a law on the books that prevents individuals who are deemed too dangerous by the government from boarding an airplane from being able to buy a gun.” And “closing the gun show loophole.” He further said there is “a similar proposal that applies to individuals who seek to purchase firearms over the Internet. There’s a similar loophole there.”
After Earnest concluded his answer by stating, “we just need to get Congress to act.” He was asked, “Will the president then propose that? Will he do that in an executive order?”
Earnest responded, “The question about whether or not the president has the authority to do it is a different one. And the president has asked his attorneys, both here at the White House, and at the Department of Justice, to look carefully at the law, to determine what kinds of authorities the president does have to pass executive actions that would implement some of these common sense steps.” He added that this legal determination “is something they’ve been working on for quite some time. And hopefully that’s something that we could see in relatively short order.”
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