On Wednesday, President Barack Obama released his comprehensive plan to reduce gun violence in general, and gun deaths in particular. It included a combination of legislative requests and Executive Orders. It is the latter that has the right-wing media and pundits, NRA apologists, and 2nd Amendment revisors out in full high dudgeon. How dare "King Obama" ignore the legislative branch with his actions (despite Dubya doing the same 291 times)? It's a wonder the TV cameras aren't covered in spittle.

So what exactly is in those 23 Executive Orders? Let's take a look:

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.


2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.


3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.


4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.


5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.


6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.


7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.


8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).


9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.


10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.


11. Nominate an ATF director.


12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.


13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.


14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.


15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.


16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.


17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.


18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.


19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.


20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.


21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.


23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

Wow - that is serious tyranny huh? Writing letters, clearing up red tape, and enforcing existing laws is just the same as Stalin...

This constant repetition of the word "tyranny" is likely not an accident. One of the favorite quotes of those whose lives revolve around their guns (other than the 2nd Amendment with the "well-regulated militia" part left out) is this quote by Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." In their minds it dovetails with the 2nd Amendment as permission to own as much firepower as necessary to overthrow the government.

The notion of doing so, of course, is ludicrous. Even with assault rifles, a rag-tag bunch of rednecks would be a pile of bloody meat by the time the Marines got done with them. Oddly, these are generally the same people that shout "support the troops!" That's going to be some serious cognitive dissonance when they are shouting that while being fired upon by same said troops.

These people also say that an armed person can help out in a situation. Has that ever happened? Perhaps once or twice. But the police acknowledge that even they need to undergo regular training to keep their skills sharp when there is incoming fire. The natural reaction of the average person is to duck and run, and then fumble for their gun. While they're fumbling, they're also dead.

There's also the "burgler" rationale. Do these people keep a loaded gun in the nightstand ready for use? If they have kids in the house, they better not. More likely, their guns are safely unloaded and locked in a gun safe. That's not much help in the middle of the night, is it?

When discussing something like reducing gun deaths, it's always good to look at the numbers and see where the big ones are and focusing on reducing those first. So here is some data from 2006 and 1998 that breaks it down. Obviously the numbers don't add up completely because they are from two different years:

Gun Incidents:

Type	Fatal	NonFatal
Unintentional	1181	13688
Intentional	15371	50067
Self-Inflicted	18227	4513
Undetermined	429	11117
TOTAL	35208	79385

breaking down the "intentional" part a little more:

fatalities:

Type	Gun	Non-Gun
Felony	1784	536
Argument	2943	1671
Gang	896	53
Other	1191	811
Unknown	4532	1210
TOTAL	11346	4281

what does that all mean? It means that out of 35K gun-related deaths in a year, only 1784 of them occurred as part of a crime. You have a greater chance of being shot dead as a result of an argument. You have nearly as much of a chance getting killed accidentally. Suicides with a gun are off the charts.

These deaths and injuries are easily reduced by removing guns from the equation. I could not find any statistics that denote how many of these were with guns obtained illegally, or without a background check. The suicides obviously fall under the "mental health" issue. These are also relatively old statistics. Still - 5% of gun deaths as a result of a felony is a pretty small number to reinforce the "protect my home" meme, when you have a much greater chance of killing yourself or a loved one with your own gun.

So perhaps this is what is meant by "tyranny" - the government trying to keep us from hurting ourselves via our own ineptness and stupidity. Yes - just like Stalin.