As far as what the President can legally accomplish by Executive Order, he may only use Executive Orders to implement authority that has been delegated to him by Congress (via law) or that was delegated to him by the Constitution.
From a Second Amendment perspective, one continuing problem has been that the 1968 Gun Control Act bans many firearms from importation and/or manufacture if they are deemed "not suitable for sporting purposes." However, Congress has never defined that term and has left the decision on whether they are suitable for sporting purposes up to the Secretary of Treasury/Attorney General (pre-Department of Homeland Security/post-DHS).
To use an example everyone here can understand, any firearm with a bore of greater than 0.50" is considered a Destructive Device and must be registered under the 1934 NFA the same as a Machinegun or Suppressor, UNLESS the Attorney General determines it "particularly suitable for sporting purposes." So basically, the Attorney General has the power to arbitrarily declare any shotgun, imported or domestically manufactured, a "Destructive Device." Congress doesn't need to pass any laws to do this; they already passed the law delegating such authority in 1968.
And the ATF has subsequently used that authority to ban several shotguns.
More alarmingly, under this Administration, the ATF submitted a proposal for a "sporting purposes test" for shotguns that would have turned tens of thousands of domestically-manufactured shotguns into NFA weapons.
That kind of overreach would almost certainly provoke a response from Congress; however, it is much easier to keep legislation from passing Congress than it is to pass a new bill - so it could prove difficult for Congress to revoke or clarify their "sporting purposes" language should that happen. This is but one more reason why killing that clause in any way possible should be a high-priority.
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Originally Posted by Thallub
The first administration to ban the importation of a long gun under the "sporting purposes" clause of the GCA 1968 was headed by "the gunowners champion", Ronald Reagan. In 1984 the Reagan BATFE banned a South African shotgun from import. In 1986 the Reagan BATFE banned another semi-auto shotgun from import. BTW: After he left office, Reagan joined Carter, Ford and Clinton in shilling for the "assault weapons" ban.
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You may have forgotten our previous conversation, linked above, but the USAS-12, Striker 12, and Streetsweeper shotguns, were banned by ATF Rulings 94-1, 94-2 in 1994, long after Reagan had ceased to be President. Perhaps you could clarify the specific ATF ruling and the shotguns it banned; because I couldn't find one from the Reagan-era?