Paul Ryan: Obama's Gun Plans Represent a 'Dangerous Level of Executive Overreach, and the Country Will Not Stand for It

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement Monday that the country "will not stand" for President Barack Obama's "dangerous level of executive overreach" on guns.

In the statement, Ryan said that, at the very least, Obama is undermining the democratic process.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (Getty Images/Alex Wong)

"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," Ryan said. "His proposals to restrict gun rights were debated by the United States Senate, and they were rejected."

"No president should be able to reverse legislative failure by executive fiat, not even incrementally," the speaker continued. "The American people deserve a president who will respect their constitutional rights — all of them. This is a dangerous level of executive overreach, and the country will not stand for it."

Obama was scheduled to meet with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Monday to discuss which gun control measures he can implement via executive action. So far, Congress has rejected expanding background checks and additional restrictions on firearms and ammunition.

Instead of focusing on restricting gun rights, Ryan said that more emphasis needs to be put on the underlying issue of mass murder: mental health.

"We have seen consistently that an underlying cause of these attacks has been mental illness, and we should look at ways to address this problem," he said.

Lawmakers in both the House and the Senate are currently drafting legislation that would prevent the mentally ill from obtaining firearms.

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