US Senator Dianne Feinstein. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
Capitalizing upon the tragedy that savagely took the lives of 20 children and 7 others in Newtown, Connecticut, Senator Feinstein is introducing a gun ban bill which has been in the works for over a year which represents a direct assault upon Second Amendment rights. According to a December 27th posting on her website and a draft bill obtained by the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, the legislation would define “assault weapons” to comprise a much larger variety of firearms than ever before, require current owners of those included to register them with the Federal Government noting locations, impose a $200 tax per firearm, prohibit their transfer to other people, and require that those weapons be forfeited and destroyed upon the owners’ deaths.
Although there is a lot of convenient anti-gun confusion regarding what the infamous “assault weapon” term means, let’s be very clear here that the proposed legislation has nothing to do with banning automatic military weapons which rapid-fire lots of bullets with a single trigger pull. Those have been illegal for domestic sale since 1986 under the “machine gun ban” signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, and can be owned only by those who have acquired a very special Class III permit.
No, instead, we are referring to a special class of semi-automatic weapons, meaning… one trigger pull…one “bang”. Under the 1994 law (now expired), these included semi-automatic versions of rifles that accepted detachable magazines and possessed at least two other characteristics, such as a protruding pistol grip, flash suppressor (or a threaded barrel to accept one), or a folding or telescoping stock. Today, most handguns in America are semi-automatic, as are many long guns. And while some of the latter may look like automatic “machine guns”, they do not function in that manner.
Carrying hyperbole to a hysterical level, as if it wasn’t enough that Feinstein’s original 1994 ban listed a grenade launching feature as a prohibited feature for rifles, her 2013 version now also includes a restriction on a “rocket launcher”. Seriously? Is the American public really unaware that grenades and rockets have long been restricted under the National Firearms Act?
So then, what constitutes an assault weapon under the revised definition? Whereas the 1994 ban permitted firearms to be manufactured only if they had no more than one “external feature” listed in the law, the Feinstein proposal would allow no exceptions. For example, while the 1994 ban applied to a rifle or shotgun where the “pistol grip” protruded conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon, the new bill would drastically expand the definition to include any “grip…or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.” It also adds a prohibition on a “forward grip” for rifles, defining it as a “grip located forward of the trigger that functions as a pistol grip.”
At minimum, the proposed legislation will prohibit all models of the AR-15, including those developed for compliance with California’s already highly restrictive ban. It also expands the definition of “assault weapon” to include three very popular rifles, including the M1 Carbine introduced in 1944, any semi-automatic, any centerfire, or rimfire rifle that is less than 30 inches long, those with a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds (except for tubular-magazine .22s). The ban will also apply to any semi-automatic handgun with a fixed magazine with a capacity to accept more than 10 rounds or a threaded barrel.
Yes, the proposed legislation does take aim at handguns, in defiance of a District of Columbia v. Heller ruling that the Second Amendment protects the rights to have handguns for self-defense in large part because they are the type of forearm “overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose.” Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines are the most popular handguns in use today, and most can accommodate more than 10 rounds. Of the nearly 1,000 firearms Senator Feinstein exempts by name, the list doesn’t contain a single handgun. Yet before being elected to the Senate, she carried a handgun for her own personal protection.
Whereas the 1994 ban allowed the importation of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition that were manufactured before the ban took effect and protected gun owners from errant prosecution by making government prove when a magazine was made, the new ban would require firearms dealers to certify when any such a magazine was manufactured. This is virtually impossible, since magazines aren’t stamped with dates of manufacture.
Senator Feinstein certainly isn’t alone in advocating new gun bans, along with outright confiscations. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who claims to support the Second Amendment, has said that he regards confiscation to be an option. Under her plan all existing (newly defined) “assault weapons” would be put under National Firearms Act (NFA) regulation, just as machine guns already are, and subject to all the legal ownership hoops such regulation entails. Presumably, like machine guns, they would be subject to periodic inspections by a greatly expanded Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), and owners would be subject to invasive background checks and contingent upon a local judge’s or chief law enforcement officer’s approval. Failure to meet any of these requirements could be grounds for confiscation.
And what is the justification? According to her website, Feinstein claims that a Department of Justice study found that the 1994 ban resulted in a 6.7% decrease in murders. But what the study actually said is “At best, the assault weapons ban can have only a limited effect on total gun murders, because the banned weapons and magazines were never involved in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders. Our best estimate is that the ban contributed to a 6.7 % decrease in total gun murders between 1994 and 1995…However, with only one year of post-ban data, we cannot rule out the possibility that this decrease reflects chance year-to-year variation rather than a true effect of the ban. Nor can we rule out effects of other features of the 1994 Crime Act or a host of state and local initiatives that took place simultaneously.”
Also, for a bit more perspective, consider that while the number of AR-15s of all models that Feinstein’s new bill defines as “assault weapons” rose by more than 2.5 million from 1995 through 2011, the nation’s murder rate during that same period fell 48% to a 48-year low during that period. In fact, the FBI reports that 8.5 times more people are murdered with knives, blunt objects and bare hands as with rifles of any type.
In the final analysis, would banning AR-15s or any other creatively characterized “assault weapons” reduce incidents of senseless, evil and heartless violence? Perhaps. Reducing the rights of responsible citizens to do virtually anything can be justified by those predisposed to do so if, overall, it will deny those rights to others who might act irresponsibly. And, in fact we already do so. For example, we legally deny the right to drive lethal automobiles to those whose history of wreck less behavior poses a risk to others. And we already deny the right for anyone to legally purchase an AR-15 in the U.S., or any other firearm, if the intended buyer falls into one of nine categories of “prohibited persons”, including felons, someone found guilty of domestic violence misdemeanors, or a person who has been adjudicated mentally ill or alcoholic.
But a huge problem arises when we allow lawmakers to act upon periodic emotional tragedies to indiscriminately and increasingly limit prerogatives of law abiding citizens to exercise constitutionally-guaranteed rights. Here, obfuscation of facts is a primary strategy, conflating a common misconception of popular semi-automatic “assault weapons” with automatic “machine guns” which have been illegal for domestic sale since 1986 under a law signed by President Ronald Reagan…guns which can be owned only by those who have acquired a very special Class III permit. This is an important distinction, one which is typically ignored by gun-control proponents, including the mainstream media.
It really comes down to a fundamental question…who do you trust most to protect our lives and liberties, government, or the actions of responsible citizens? Before you decide, consider that according to Bureau of Justice Statistics, the firearm crime rate dropped from 6 victims per 1,000 residents in 1994, to 1.4 victims per 1,000 residents in 2009. This has occurred as more and more citizens have armed themselves. This goes a long way to explaining that while only a handful of states had concealed-carry programs 25 years ago when violent crime rates peaked, today, 41 states either allow carrying without a permit, or have “shall issue” laws. And while major crimes show continuing decline in right-to-carry states, this phenomenon parallels a major crime rise in heavily gun-controlled cities.
Yes, all guns are “assault weapons” for those who deign to assault someone. This includes many who own them as a means to prevent violent assaults upon themselves and loved ones. There are lots of other reasons that people choose to own them as well: some because they engage in competitive and recreational shooting activities, some because they like to hunt, some because they collect them out of historical interest and for investment purposes, some because they inherited them passed down from family, and some, just because it’s their constitutionally-guaranteed right to do so and are under no obligation whatsoever to explain why.
In fact, maybe that last one is the very best reason of all. Let’s protect our right to keep it that way!
