U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and U.S. Reps. Martha Roby (R-AL) and Bruce Poliquin (R-ME) responded to reports on Monday that President Barack Obama would seek to take executive action to unilaterally restrict Second Amendment rights.
“President Obama has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of regard for the constitutional limits of his authority, and I am deeply dismayed by reports that he is planning to use the recent terror attacks as an excuse to try to dilute our Second Amendment rights by executive order,” Blunt said. “Americans are rightly concerned about incidents of violence across our nation. The president should use this opportunity to get to the root cause of so many of them and join me in my efforts to improve and expand access to mental health care. Addressing the mental health needs of those who would do us harm is critical for preventing another horrific attack.”
Blunt called on the president to reconsider such an action and said that he should instead work with Congress to enact measures to improve the nation’s mental health care system and keep Americans safe.
Roby, who has served as a long-time defender of Second Amendment rights, said that she would fight any attempt to circumvent Congress on the issue.
“President Obama is wrong to try to bypass Congress to unilaterally mandate his gun control agenda, and it won’t stand,” Roby said. “I’m a gun owner myself, and I strongly value the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. I will fight on behalf of those I represent to stop any attempt to erode the Second Amendment rights of Americans.
“There is a reason Congress has repeatedly rejected President Obama’s gun control agenda: on top of being unconstitutional, his proposals would not have prevented the recent attacks he uses to justify new laws. Instead of forcing unconstitutional gun regulations that have little hope of stopping premeditated attacks, I believe our focus should be dealing with the root causes, specifically mental health and terrorism.”
Poliquin said that he was “astonished” by the news but “not surprised.”
“We Mainers have a long tradition of exercising our Second Amendment rights responsibly, having a large amount of gun owners and a very low amount of gun violence,” Poliquin said. “I believe that enacting sweeping regulations on gun owners is an irresponsible and misguided reaction to real threats from terrorists. We need to better enforce the laws that are in place now and develop comprehensive strategies to keep Americans safe. The president’s proposed action would not have prevented any of the horrific attacks on our soil, infringes upon law-abiding citizens’ rights and does not make us any safer.”