Jeb Bladine: By all means, don't tamper with the 2nd

Although I prefer congressional legislation to unilateral executive decree, I understand President Obama’s frustration. Despite the ongoing slaughter, Congress refuses any common sense action seeking to prevent criminals, terrorists and mentally ill people from acquiring guns.

Presidential action may not be the best way to enact law, but perhaps it will help trigger a national realization that government should act in accordance with overwhelming public opinion favoring these kinds of gun controls.

“Until we have a Congress that’s in line with the majority of Americans, these are actions within my legal authority that we can take to help reduce gun violence to save more lives,” said Obama. He called his proposals ones “that the overwhelming majority of the American people, including gun owners, support and believe in … entirely consistent with the Second Amendment and people’s lawful right to bear arms.”

Meanwhile, we have the reactions from potential presidents.

Obama is “obsessed” with “undermining” the Second amendment (Marco Rubio); he “wants to act as if he is a king, as if he is a dictator” (Chris Christie); it is “another lawless, unconstitutional overreach” (Carly Fiorina); all he’s doing is “poisoning the well” (John Kasich); he is “trampling on the Second Amendment” with a “gun-grabbing agenda” (Jeb Bush).

Polls-leader Donald Trump, who has supported a ban on assault rifles and a longer waiting period for gun purchases, was typically vague and rambling. He said “we can’t tamper with the Second Amendment” – as if that is an adequate analysis – and said he would “unsign” anything Obama enacts.

Most disturbingly, Ted Cruz’s website featured the headline, “Obama wants your guns,” with an image of the president wearing combat gear and a very Nazi-esque helmet. Demagoguery by Cruz, and others, is turning this year’s presidential campaign into the most divisive political event in recent history.

At the other end of the political spectrum, in its first front page editorial since 1920, The New York Times wrote in December: “It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency … These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing.”

But let’s not tamper with the Second Amendment.

Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-68701223.