The President released a new executive order on guns this week, but instead of signaling new initiative on the issue, it may show he is reaching the limits of his power. On Tuesday, the White House announced the President would direct the Attorney General and various federal agencies to implement a variety of reforms. The action included an effort to expand requirements for who must obtain a federal license to sell guns, a request for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate gun advertising, efforts to spread awareness of “red flag” laws, and more. It came in response to a January mass shooting in Monterey Park, California. President Biden had a simple message in his speech to victims’ families that same day. “Enough. Do something,” he said. “We remember and mourn today, but I am here with you today to act.” But the order he produced appears to be far less aggressive than he is projecting and certainly less impactful than his previous gun actions. It also comes as those other orders are staring down oblivion in the courts. And his legislative agenda has already reached the end of the road. Campaigns to increase awareness of existing laws, like the red-flag initiative, and voluntary requests for reports, like the one on gun marketing, simply don’t compare to attempts to redefine what a firearm is and reclassify pistol-braced guns already owned by millions of Americans as highly-regulated short-barrel rifles. Even the most aggressive aspects of the new order don’t reach the level of President Biden’s previous orders. Take the vague effort to force more Americans to obtain Federal Firearms Licenses (FFL) for instance. This proposal received top billing from President Biden when announcing the order. He claimed, since FFLs are required to do background checks before all consumer sales, it would get close to making all gun sales subject to FBI checks. “[M]y executive order directs my Attorney General to take every lawful action possible — possible to move us as close as we can to universal background checks without new legislation,” he said. But this isn’t the first time a president has pushed for this exact policy. The last administration Joe Biden was part of tried the exact same thing. In 2016, President Barack Obama issued an executive order attempting the exact same thing to little practical effect. President Biden has a bit more leeway thanks to last year’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which slightly changed the standard for who is “engaged in the business” of dealing guns to those seeking predominantly to profit from their sales. That may embolden the Department of Justice to more aggressively prosecute people who sell guns near the edges of when it could reasonably be considered a business. But federal prosecutors haven’t been very eager to take edge cases to this point, and it’s unlikely they’d be enthusiastic about enormously expanding enforcement. The same problems affect the President’s push to have the Department of Defense backdoor gun-control requirements into their weapon acquisition programs and get