Jeb Bush says Obama is going beyond his authority on guns
By Michael A. Memoli
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush joined the chorus of Republicans on the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill who are decrying President Obama’s executive actions aimed at limiting gun violence, and called it a power grab outside the bounds of the president’s authority.
“In Florida, the way we did it is punish people that committed crimes with guns. And it worked,” Bush said during a campaign event here.
A woman in the audience interrupted: “Trayvon Martin would disagree,” she said, invoking the teenager whose 2012 shooting death in Florida drew outcries and set off a national debate on race and gun violence.
She called Florida’s stand-your-ground law “asinine.”
Bush, who left office in 2007, was unfazed.
“The simple fact is that gun violence has declined by about 30% when we imposed severe penalties for people committing crimes with guns,” he said. “We’re a pro-2nd Amendment state, and I’m totally proud of that.”
Obama is directing federal law enforcement officials to warn private gun sellers that they may be vulnerable to prosecution if they don’t register with the government and check the backgrounds of potential gun buyers.
But Bush criticized what he called the “impulse of the left” to always seek more restrictions on “law-abiding gun owners.”
“It’s not going to solve any problems by having the so-called gun-show loophole be taken care of by executive order. The president doesn’t have authority to do it,” he said. (Obama did not announce a closure of the gun-show loophole, nor did he issue an executive order, which is a legal mechanism at his disposal.)
“If there’s an issue related to federal gun laws, he ought to go to Congress and try and force consensus to make it happen. He doesn’t have this power,” Bush said. “And certainly the best way to do it is the way we have always done it: Allow states to decide what kind of gun control laws that they have.”