The modest gun control policy changes announced in a passionate speech by President Obama on Tuesday are not of great substantive importance. But they reveal important truths about the state of American politics. The disproportionate Republican opposition to the president’s minor executive actions on gun control isn’t just about the party’s opposition to any and all efforts to stem the tide of gun violence. Their reflexive opposition also reflects their refusal to cede any legitimate authority to the president.

After all, the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination didn’t even know what executive actions – if any – Barack Obama would take on gun control after his Monday meeting with the attorney general, Loretta Lynch. That didn’t stop them, because they knew that they would oppose whatever actions Obama planned to take.

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In light of the modesty and obvious legality of the actions that Obama announced on Tuesday, the Republicans’ pre-emptive reactions seem comically overwrought. But they do reflect two major trends in Republican thought: reflexive opposition to taking any measures to stop America’s epidemic of gun violence; and claims that standard presidential actions represent some kind of threat to American constitutional order.

But Obama’s executive orders are well within the established powers of the presidency. The fact that Congress opposes the president’s policy objectives does not mean that the president is exceeding his legal authority.

Obama proposed an executive order interpreting the scope of federal background checks more broadly, applying background checks to those who purchase firearms through a trust or corporation and requesting the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security conduct research into gun safety. Obama’s statement also said that his next budget will contain proposals to hire more FBI agents for enforcement and a $500m investment in mental health services.

These are the kinds of small steps that the president can take in the face of congressional inaction: slightly ramping up enforcement, directing executive branch officials to take certain legally authorized actions. This is combined with the shocking tyranny of the president making spending proposals in his budget. Obama’s weekend radio address reflected the modesty of the proposals: “We know that we can’t stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one?”

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Compare the scope of Obama’s reactions with the attacks Republicans made on them in advance. Amazingly, they could know that Obama’s proposed executive orders would be not merely bad policy but illegal. “This president wants to act as if he’s a king, as if he’s a dictator,” thundered noted abuser-of-executive-powers Chris Christie. Obama is proposing to “use executive power he doesn’t have” according to serial denier of voting rights Jeb Bush.

Donald Trump accused Obama of attacking the second amendment. (“I believe in the second amendment,” Obama said in his speech. “How did we get to the place where people think requiring a comprehensive background check means taking away people’s guns?”)

Reluctant speaker of the House Paul Ryan asserted that Obama was exceeding his constitutional authority despite not even knowing what Obama was planning to do: “While we don’t yet know the details of the plan, the president is at minimum subverting the legislative branch, and potentially overturning its will.”

These complaints are all silly.

Claims that these actions violate the second amendment are implausible. Even as it has expanded the scope of second amendment rights, the US supreme court has never suggested that background checks intended to prevent violent and/or mentally unstable people from acquiring guns are unconstitutional. And this is sensible, because the idea that everyone has an absolute right to purchase any weapon is a crazily unworkable one, even if you believe that the second amendment protects the rights of law-abiding citizens to possess handguns or hunting rifles.

Obama’s proposals are, in terms of gun control policy and executive branch authority, ultimately of minor importance. They’re more important for what they reveal about the Republican party in 2016 than for their substantive content.

First, the ludicrously overwrought Republican reaction to Obama’s statement shows that the party continues to refuse the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency: in that environment, utterly ordinary and plainly legal presidential actions can and will be cited as examples of a tyranny. Maybe next Republicans will start arguing that Obama is violating the US constitution and the will of the people by delivering the State of the Union address rather than letting Paul Ryan do it.



And second, it illustrates that gun control is an issue – like upper-class tax cuts and countless others – where Republican policy can be boiled down to a radical one-note ideological slogan. The effectiveness of a given policy, cost/benefit analysis and so on are all beside the point: if a proposal places any restriction on the sale or possession of guns, Republicans can know in advance that the policies are not merely bad policy but illegal. They can confidently make these assertions without even knowing what the proposed policies are.

But in 1991, former president Ronald Reagan wrote an op-ed endorsing federal gun control legislation; in 2016, Obama’s proposed to do less on gun control than even Reagan wanted is seen by Reagan-worshipping Republicans as unconscionable tyranny. The Republican race to get far to Reagan’s right makes the prospect of the GOP obtaining unified control of the government a frightening one indeed.