Before the blood has even dried in San Bernardino, Barack Obama and his cronies began acting in political theater. This week, Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett told a group of people holding a vigil in remembrance of the Sandy Hook massacre that her boss is considering proposals to institute a measure of gun control. More specifically, Obama will probably use his phone and pen to close the “gun show loophole” and expand background checks. Polls show people support background checks, so Obama’s just trying to make Republicans look unreasonable for opposing him. That shores up an incrementally larger number of people who think Republicans just won’t budge at all on the issue and don’t care that Americans keep getting killed. Recall that Obama told NBC September 2014, “Part of this job is also the theater of it. A part of it is, you know, how are you, how, how are you, well, it’s not something that — that always comes naturally to me. But it matters. And I’m mindful of that.” Make no mistake: Obama is only playing political theater. As National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke noted, Obama doesn’t have enough time in office to propose an executive order, hold a reasonable comment period and defend the action in court. It’s all for show to demonstrate Democrats are doing something, anything, about “gun violence.”

Meanwhile in the “Constitution State,” Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy promised Thursday to sign an executive order banning the sale of firearms in the state to anyone that appears on the federal terrorism watch list, a clear erosion of due process. But like all the other gun control measures the state adopted after Sandy Hook, this one wouldn’t have stopped that massacre. More theater.