White House press secretary Josh Earnest sidestepped questions Tuesday on whether President Obama kept his new gun-control executive actions very limited to avoid serious legal challenges.
But while Earnest would not discuss the legal advice Justice Department lawyers gave him about the initiatives, he predicted they would survive legal scrutiny.
“I’m not able to give you much insight into the legal advice the president receives,” Earnest said. “But the kind of guidance that the president issued today is well within his legal authority to offer.”
On Monday, the president offered a series of executive actions aimed at closing loopholes allowing buyers at gun shows and certain online outlets to avoid background checks. The new moves add to 23 executive actions on guns Obama took in early 2013 after a massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.
Instead of sweeping reforms, however, the president limited his actions to issuing guidance updating exactly what entities the government considers are “in the business” of selling guns, regardless of where the guns are sold.
Earnest also pointed out that the National Rifle Association reacted to the gun-control announcements by downplaying their significance, a step he said that would hurt any legal case they might make against them.
“I think this is going to hurt their legal case that these actions must be stopped and are a classic example of executive overreach,” he said.
Obama is already facing a legal battle in the Supreme Court over his executive efforts on immigration aimed at shielding millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. He pushed for a much stronger set of gun regulations in early 2013 but they failed to gain traction in Congress.
