Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris says she will use executive action to criminalize selling more than five guns a year without a background check. This follows a consistent Democrat-led push to criminalize all private gun sales via universal background checks. On February 27, Breitbart News reported that the Democrat-run House passed legislation to require a background check for every gun sale, thus criminalizing someone who sells a gun to a decades-long neighbor without government approval. It also criminalizes a friend who sells a gun to a lifelong friend without asking for government approval. During a May 12 appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Harris explained the scope of her executive action plans, saying, “For anyone who sells more than five guns a year, they will be required to perform background checks on the people they sell them to.” Tapper asked if executive action can really be used to implement such a substantial requirement on private gun sales and Harris responded, “Yes it can.” Harris’ push to criminalize private gun sales of more than five guns annually followed her talking about the shooting at Colorado’s STEM School Highlands Ranch. Yet stricter gun controls already exists in Colorado, where every gun sale requires a background check, whether that sale is private or retail. And these background checks did nothing to prevent the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting. When Tapper asked Harris if she supported a federal gun license, she responded, “I like the idea.” AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.<doc-sep>Senator Kamala Harris of California, the former prosecutor who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, on Monday committed to a host of executive actions to implement gun control measures that have long failed to pass in Congress. At a town hall hosted by CNN, Ms. Harris said that, if elected, she would sign an executive order mandating background checks for customers of any firearms dealer who sells more than five guns a year. The executive actions would also include more stringent regulation of gun manufacturers that could result in revoked licenses or prosecution, as well as an attempt to close the loophole that allows some domestic abusers to purchase guns if their victim is an unwedded partner. [Five Democrats took questions from college students on CNN. Here are the highlights.] “There are people in Washington, D.C., supposed leaders,” Ms. Harris said on CNN Monday evening, “who have failed to have the courage to reject a false choice which suggests you’re either in favor of the second amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away.” “We need reasonable gun safety laws in this country, starting with universal background checks and a renewal of the assault weapon ban,” she added, “but they have failed to have the courage to act.”<doc-sep>Sen. Kamala Harris said she planned to take gun control into her own hands if elected president, promising a slate of executive actions in a CNN town hall Monday night if Congress does not “get their act together” in a 100-day period to “pass reasonable gun safety laws.” Harris’s plan, which she said would be one of her first acts as president if Congress doesn't act, works to effectively go around Congress, using executive power to make strides on gun control in places where previous administrations have stalled. Harris said she would mandate universal background checks on anyone selling more than five guns a year, ending a loophole that allows private gun sellers to bypass background checks on 1 in 5 gun sales nationwide, bar people classified as fugitives from buying guns. She would also, her campaign said, close a loophole in federal law that allows perpetrators of domestic violence to keep their guns if they are not married to their partner. Harris’s plan, framed specifically around circumventing Congress through executive power, is a sign of an electorate that is weary of congressional inaction. Both President Donald Trump and former president Barack Obama turned increasingly to executive action to accomplish some of their signature policy proposals. Obama, for his part, hit a dead end when he tried to get gun control measures, like an assault weapons ban, through Congress in the wake of mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “People are fed up with the inaction on this issue. They want it done already,” said Kris Brown, the president of Brady, a bipartisan gun control organization that does not endorse candidates. Harris, Brown said, is “bypassing the stranglehold that a tiny minority of [Congress] members can exert to stop action on a measure that almost every American think is a good idea.” In a memo outlining the plan to BuzzFeed News, Harris’s campaign said she would push to take gun manufacturers and dealers to court if they are negligent or break state and local laws. A 2005 federal law, the Protection of Commerce in Arms Act, has put up barriers to those kinds of civil lawsuits, but Harris’s campaign said she would work around that law. Any attempt to use executive power to crack down on gun manufacturers and gun ownership would likely be met with legal challenges from the gun rights lobby. Trump’s attempts to ban the sale of bump stocks using executive power was swiftly challenged in court by bump stock owners and gun rights advocates, in a case that is set to go in front of the Supreme Court.<doc-sep>Katie Pavlich said Sen. Kamala Harris’ proposed executive action on gun control would be “an attack on Second Amendment rights.” Harris, D-Calif, is expected to pledge at a campaign event in New Hampshire Wednesday that if she’s elected president, she would sign an executive order banning the importation of AR-15-style assault weapons, Politico reported. "If by my 100th day in office when elected president of the United States, the United States Congress fails to put a bill on my desk to sign with all of the good ideas or any of the good ideas that I'm prepared to take executive action because that's what's needed," Harris said on CNN Sunday. KAMALA HARRIS PLEDGES EXECUTIVE ORDER ON GUN CONTROL IF CONGRESS DOESN'T ACT IN HER FIRST 100 DAYS On “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning, Pavlich, a Fox News contributor, said when Harris talks about “good ideas” to deal with gun violence, she’s really referring to a “gun ban.” “She’s not talking about safety measures, she’s not talking about giving law enforcement more ability to prosecute people who are using guns incorrectly, people who are already breaking the law,” Pavlich said. She added that a majority of crimes carried out with guns in the U.S. are committed with handguns, so cracking down on semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 would not actually address the issue. KAMALA HARRIS CALLS FOR REGULATING FACEBOOK, HEALTH CARE FOR THOSE IN US ILLEGALLY “Yet we keep hearing this talking point from Democrats like Kamala Harris, that they want to ban this firearm, which is owned by millions of law-abiding Americans,” Pavlich said. “And so it is an attack on Second Amendment rights, and it doesn’t solve the issue that she claims to be going after.” She said this “talking point” may play well in the Democratic primary, but it won’t be nearly as popular in the general election. CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP “Of course people want gun safety, of course people want background checks,” Pavlich said. “But when it comes to actually solving problems, taking away the Second Amendment rights of Americans and claiming that you’re solving a problem … that is going to be a problem for her.”<doc-sep>
Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) said if she is elected president, she will use executive action to take away gun dealers’ licenses “who fail to follow the law.” When asked if she would support a federal gun license, Harris said, “I like the idea. Jake, I’ll tell you, on this issue of the need for gun safety losses, we’re not at any loss for good ideas. People have been having good ideas for decades on this issue. What we’re at a loss is people in Congress have the courage to do something. I’m going to tell you on this subject, we’re not waiting for the worst tragedy because we’ve seen the worst of tragedies including what happened this week and seeing the heroism of a child who we now mourn his loss, his parents’ only child. We’re not waiting for tragedies and great ideas. Universal background check? Good idea. You might want to know if someone has been proven to be a danger for themselves or others before they can buy a lethal weapon.” Harris said, “Let me tell you what I’m proposing. I’m proposing, one, if by my 100th day in office when elected president of the United States, the United States Congress fails to put a bill on my desk to sign with all of the good ideas or any of the good ideas that I’m prepared to take executive action because that’s what’s needed.” She continued, “For anyone who sells more than five guns a year, they will be required to perform background checks on the people they sell them to. This will be the most comprehensive background check policy that has ever been had in our country thus far.” She added, “I’m also prepared to say and to direct the ATF to remove and take away the licenses of gun dealers who fail to follow the law. 90% of the guns that are associated with crime have been sold by 5% of the gun dealers. We need to take their licenses away.” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN