At a CNN town hall on Thursday, a policeman challenged the constitutionality of President Obama’s executive order and questioned whether it would have stopped any recent mass shootings.
The cop, Sheriff Paul Babeu, first pointed out that it is not in his power as a sheriff to create laws, just as it is not in the president’s power to do so.
"Mr. President, you've said you've been thwarted, frustrated by Congress. As a sheriff, I oftentimes get frustrated, but I don't make the laws, and I've sworn an oath to enforce the law to uphold the Constitution, the same oath you've taken," Babeu said.
He then questioned whether Obama’s recent decision to enact gun control measures through executive action would have stopped recent mass shootings.
"The talk in why we're here is all of these mass shootings, and yet you've said in your executive action it wouldn't have solved even one of these--" he said.
"No, I didn’t say that," Obama said.
Babeu then asked Obama what his executive action would have solved.
"What would it have solved?" he said. "What would you have done to prevent these mass shootings and the terrorist attack, and how do we get those with mental illness and criminals, that's the real problem here, how are we going to get them to follow the laws?"
In response, Obama said that it is hard to know when someone is a criminal, and that keeping guns from criminals would make communities safer. He said that doing so would not infringe on second amendment rights.