Law guys...got a 2A related question.

[SilentStalker]

Ok, as we all know Pelosi dropped a big hint the other night about the possibility of a future president using his national emergency declaration powers to address the so called gun violence problem. Many say that the president cannot, even temporarily, remove the rights of citizens given to them by the Constitution, more importantly the specific BOR amendments. However, they do say immigration is clearly within the realm of him addressing. So, I guess my question is, if a president did supposedly ban literally everything and did a defacto removal of the second amendment, would that ban/removal of a key right be in place until it was settled in the courts? Like I am trying to figure out if this is even a possibility or just fear mongering and wishful thinking on Pelosi’s side? With that being said, it doesn’t really seem like many of them hold the Constitution in high regards anyways, so how much of a deterrent is it really?

 

[Rembrandt]

We are seeing Sheriffs across the country refusing to enforce gun laws imposed by the urban elites....I suspect that's what would happen in the OP's scenario.

 

[jmorris]

They took them away during Katrina.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/us/nationalspecial/police-begin-seizing-guns-of-civilians.html

Our current POTUS declared a plastic stock was a machinegun.

Without challenges in court, it will stay that way. Law abiding citizens would become criminals if they didn’t follow the law while in effect though.

 

[Steve S.]

With enough support, the government can do anything it wants. It intermed 100k+ Americans in WWII because their ancestry was Japanese, it supported enslaving people for hundreds of years to work in cotton fields, it created an income tax so it could own your labor, etc (on and on and on); with enough support and/ or lack of resistance, any crazy behavior in the name of our government can be justified. I would love to overthow and organize a new government but I cannot do it by myself - there is simply not enough support for that action, not yet anyway.

 

[BSA1]

Pelosi is doing the time proven tactic of divide and conquer.

A big portion of President Trump's base are gun owners. Pelosi, along with willing media, is trying to convince everyone that immigration is a guaranteed right the same as the right to bear and keep arms. Since the President can use a executive order to help control illegal immigration another President can use executive order to ban legally owned firearms.

Look at the differences.

President Trump is using his authority to attempt to control and prevent illegal actions. Immigration is clearly defined and laws for doing it legally have been in force for a long time.

Pelosi is trying to create fear with gun owners (with some success already on THR and some other forums) that a future President (presumed to be a Democrat that will be elected in 2020) can with a stroke of pen ban ownership of legally owned items (such as magazines) and guns (maybe semi-auto rifles for example).

So to keep our guns we had better not make the Democrats mad at us by supporting President Trump using his authority to shift funds to build the border wall (or fence or barrier. Whatever politically correct term you want to use).

But let's accept that a Democrat is elected President next year and enacts a Executive Order banning whatever (magazines, guns, ammunition) is currently legal. The enforcement will be up to Federal law enforcement agencies such as BATFE, FBI, DHS. It is illegal for the military to be used to enforce laws against it's citizens.

The best gun salesman of this century whined about not being able to enact gun control through executive action. Even retired Supreme Court Justice Stevens is complaining about that darn 2nd Amendment and that it should be repealed so guns can be banned.

 

[AlexanderA]

This is not a legal question, but a political one.

 

[SilentStalker]

This is not a legal question, but a political one.

Not exactly. I’m trying to figure out if it’s even legally possible for the president to do such a thing as she remarked. Some might make it political but I’m purely interested in the legal aspect of this. As far as who enforced it, the ATF could easily make anyone’s life miserable that owns guns and they have records to all legally transferred gun via FFL records. So they can at least trade it back to whoever had said weapon first. If you live in a free state then it goes cold after that as some states to do not require all sales to go through an FFL.

 

[Texas10mm]

Some states have a law that prevents law enforcement from enforcing unconstitutional laws.

 

[Frank Ettin]

The real problems with the OP's question are that it's too vague and too open ended. Details matter.

The question of whether the President can do something depends on exactly what the President wants to do and exactly how he proposes to do it. And what our remedies might be will depend on exactly what the President does and how,

For that reason I'm going to close this.

Some states have a law that prevents law enforcement from enforcing unconstitutional laws.

Nope. A law isn't unconstitutional unless/until a court having appropriate jurisdiction says so.

In fact the law that laws are presumed to be constitutional. The courts give deference to legislative acts and presume statutes valid and enforceable, unless/until unconstitutionality is determined. As the Supreme Court said in Brown v. State of Maryland, 25 U.S. 419 (1827), at 437:

...It has been truly said, that the presumption is in favour of every legislative act, and that the whole burden of proof lies on him who denies its constitutionality....

And much more recently in U.S. v Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000):

...Due respect for the decisions of a coordinate branch of Government demands that we invalidate a congressional enactment only upon a plain showing that Congress has exceeded its constitutional bounds. See United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S., at 568, 577_578 (Kennedy, J., concurring); United States v. Harris, 106 U.S., at 635. With this presumption of constitutionality in mind, we turn to the question whether §13981 falls within Congress' power under Article I, §8, of the Constitution....

So in the real world a statute is valid and enforceable unless and until it is found invalid by a court having appropriate jurisdiction.

We are seeing Sheriffs across the country refusing to enforce gun laws imposed by the urban elites....I suspect that's what would happen in the OP's scenario.

Nope. Federal law can be enforced by federal agents directly without necessarily involving local law enforcement.