An all-out Feinstein gun ban probably isn’t on the way soon (a string of shootings could change that), but its remains the goal of the Dems long-term. They will use the press to wage a propaganda war to alter public opinion enough to avoid a repeat of the 1996 elections. In the mean time, “The Democrats cannot be trusted with our freedoms, and they will politicize every tragedy to accomplish their ends.”
If a gun ban were put in place that greatly restricted some of the most popular semi-automatic rifles and pistols available today, there would be other affects down the road depending on the details. Here we’ll assume a ban on all new semi-autos, normal capacity magazine, or the transfers of those.
Markets: Drying up the civilian market would obviously cause a lot of current producers to fold their doors, especially the smaller outfits. Unless they could make the change to bolt guns (bound to become better sellers), or get and keep military and police contracts. Then the firearms available to the public would cost more since the volume would be lower (eventually, not counting the current buying frenzy).
Regulations: Paying for all the checks, record keeping, registries, etc. also has costs involved and guess who will pay them; gun owners. If it is anything close to the hoops one has to go through to own a firearm in DC, you’re talking a couple days (or more) of in-person filings at various offices, and hundreds of dollars of fees, on top of the cost of probably mandatory firearms training.
Overall effect: Shrink the market; make legally owning firearms prohibitively expensive for most Americans. Key work there is legally – the bad guys won’t be paying any of those fees, and won’t be limited to whatever the nanny-state allows.
Some Republicans may roll over: See info from the Doc Thompson Show.
Nutnfancy explains a Second Amendment issue: Many for gun control think those who favor owning firearms as a check on the government are delusional since modern militaries are so powerful. Nutn explains that semi-auto rifles can get one a crew-served weapon, etc.
Sturmgewehre goes into detail on the magazine ban: Mac also include a link to contact your elected representatives to tell them you do not want them to vote for more gun regulations.
At Guns.com, see a Marine’s letter to Feinstein, and Ted Nugent’s letter to Biden.
BOYCOTT: Dick’s Sporting Goods for rolling on it’s customers, and Cheaper Than Dirt for attempting to profiteer.
Your points are right on.
As for the Second Amendment’s value as a shield against tyranny and those who laugh at the idea, ask them to consider Iraq. It took the US military and her allies less than a month to take down the Iraqi military and cost the US only a small number of KIAs, most of them accidents and fratricide. Yet, the insurgents are STILL fighting many years and many thousands of US KIA later. If memory serves, there are about 30 million Iraqis in total, with only a fraction of them fighting age males. Compare that number to the 80 to 90 million US gun owners. How can anyone with a brain honestly think the Second Amendment has no value today as a last-ditch safeguard for freedom? The US military is actually more vulnerable here in the US than overseas, for many reasons I will not get into here.
BTW, I have refused to do business with CTD for many years and the other company I have not even heard of until lately.
John,
Yeah, I also decided not to elaborate on how effective a local insurgency could be, if it ever comes to that, we’re all effed.
We are the civil power and it’s curious that some of us are petitioning our elected officials to disarm us, Not sure what these people are thinking other then an misguided emotional reaction along with a lack of historical knowledge of our species…
The men pictured above did in fact disarm their civilians at the same time they built up arms within government.
Our constitution was specifically written with the intent of making exactly what is being implied impossible for our government to execute. I guess the x-factor would be a civil uprising that desired our government to be armed and the civil power disarmed. Will be entertaining to watch this unfold. I hope they at least consider the long term term effects of altering out rights and ignoring the constitution. Even an unsuccessful attempt will fill the house and senate with republicans as I know I, and everyone i have talked with the past few weeks will not be supporting anyone that does not defend the constitution as they are sworn to do.
I’m getting ready to write a letter to the NRA and my congressmen. Let me know if there are any obvious flaws in my reasoning, or any chance in hell of getting this made into law.
First, I am an NRA member and strong proponent of gun-rights. I own semi-autos and full capacity magazines. However, I cannot sit idly by and watch our children continue to get murdered by madmen. And there will be more mass shootings if we do nothing. As sure as the sun rises, there will be more. I don’t know what is causing these shooters to go insane, and I’m not willing to wait for science to figure it out.
Second, the solution to me is obvious. We need an age restriction on semi-auto firearms and their magazines. Virtually all of the recent mass shootings were conducted by 20-something males. I will let someone else figure out if 35 is a better age than 30. For starters, I would go for no one under 30 can buy a semi-auto or their magazines. Semi-autos would still be legal in the states that allow them, for those 30 and over.
Third, I know this is not fair to 99.999% of 20-somethings that are law abiding, mentally stable, and gun-loving. It is not meant to be fair, just effective. We did the same thing for drinking. Not all teenagers need to wait until 21 to safely consume alcohol, but it sure is effective at reducing the number of teenage drunk driving deaths. If you personally can’t wait, please join the military and serve your country while learning safe firearm usage.
Fourth, 20-somethings should still be able to buy single or double shot rifles, shotguns, or pistols; which are very suitable for all legal shooting purposes, but would effectively limit mass shootings. I know many gun owners will complain that this would prevent purchase of revolvers, pump-action shotguns, and lever-action rifles. But come on, admit it. Any revolver, pump gun, or lever gun can be devastating in the hands of a determined shooter. And the madmen would just start buying these once we cut off their access to semi-autos. I want this to be an effective law, not just white-wash to appease the current ground swell of emotion.
Fifth, the currently proposed solution of cops in schools is nice, but can be expensive, and does nothing for the rest of the places our children gather. I agree we could use better mental health tracking, but I don’t thrust that this would be as effective as an age requirement.
Sixth, sorry Girls, this age restriction would apply to you too. As a father of two daughters I am keenly aware of the need to train and equip them for their personal safety. But this is another of those laws that may not be fair, but is necessary. All too often, the madmen pressure their girlfriends to buy the weapons for them. This happened at Columbine, and the very recent New York firefighters ambush. It is also a common source of semi-auto handguns for convicted felons that cannot legally buy one themselves. So girls need to be included in the age restriction.
Seventh, this proposed age-restriction would not have prevented the Sandy Hook tragedy. But how do we legislate common sense? (“Don’t leave high-power weapons where troubled youth have access”). However, no additional laws are needed in this aspect. I would suspect every parent in the US with a troubled child now knows they need to prevent uncontrolled access to semi-auto firearms. I think the age-restriction is enough for now. If more Sandy Hooks occur, we will need to re-evaluate.
Finally, I have grown weary of this constant battle for gun rights (and the constant financial appeals from the NRA). As gun owners, we need to solve this problem now, or the liberals will get their way. And we all know where that leads. So while no one wants an age-restriction, I think it is the best solution for today’s mass shootings problem. I know you have an opinion. Let’s hear it.
SG in Virginia,
Your thinking is simply wrong and is no different from the liberals’ way of “handling” society’s problems. I am in my late fifties, so this is not selfishness. Using your logic, we should ban young black American males from owning guns, since they are about seventeen times more likely to commit murder than young white males. This would, of course, be unconstitutional, but any law that discriminates against any age group involving adults would be just as unconstitutional. We have laws against age discrimination, and that is not just for American adults OVER a certain age; it includes adults UNDER a certain age, also. As for exempting young adults who have served in our armed forces, there are many liberals who believe veterans are MORE likely to be dangerous than the rest of society! There are so many things wrong with your idea, there is no way to list them all here.
How can banning semi autos or reducing magazine capacity help? What’s to stop a maniac from loading ten seven-round .357 magnum revolvers and dropping them as he empties them? That’s seventy rounds! There are smaller caliber revolvers that hold eight, even ten rounds. How about reducing legal magazine capacity to ten rounds? (That is the liberals’ answer.) A shooter can kill as many people with two ten round mags as one twenty round mag. The only difference is about a half a second. The liberals will say to ban ALL magazine-fed guns. There is no appeasing them. They want all guns banned.
Many schools already have at least one “resource officer” (cop) on duty. The cost of having a cop in every school is a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of enforcing ANY gun law, and the cost of enforcing the kind of laws the liberals want will be extremely high, because every violation is a ten year prison sentence. It costs almost as much to keep one felon in prison as it does to keep a cop on the job! Often, the cost of the trial alone can be more than the cost of a cop for one year. Another problem with more gun laws of ANY kind is the fact innocent citizens get caught up in legal problems with no intent of committing a crime at all. I find it ironic that a news broadcaster may be going to jail because he brought a normal capacity AR magazine into DC to show on a TV program that supported gun bans. It shows how easily a citizen who is not a criminal and is no threat to society can wind up in prison for ten years. Why would anyone want more gun laws to cause more innocent Americans to suffer this?
I have read that the number of Americans killed each year by so-called “assault weapons” is fewer than the number killed with fists and feet. Over the last five years, several people in my area (one recent case involved a school teacher who punched a man in a public restroom), have been charged with manslaughter for killing a man with one punch. This is just one three-county area. “Assault” weapons are used in a very small percentage of murders, so why go after them? Handguns are the most common type of firearm used in crime.
As to being tired of defending our Second Amendment rights, that will never end, at least not as long as the common American citizen can still own a legal gun.
The emotion evoked by the slaughter of children is something we all suffer from. It angered me that people from other countries and our own gun owner haters here in the US did not even give us time to grieve before they jumped on the tragedy for political purposes or to criticize America. That, too, is something that will never end. We must keep in mind that children are abused and even murdered by their own parents every day in America, and most of the time no guns are involved. The only thing needed to commit a heinous crime is the will to do it.
SG in Virginia,
By your logic, we need to ban swimming pools to young children because they are more likely to drown than adults or should their be a height restriction before you can get in a pool or should we just outlaw water. There is evil in the world. We cannot protect everyone from every harm that is out there. More people have died on our public roads than from all wars combined. Do we need to ban driving? It, unlike the 2nd Admendment, is a privilige not a right which could be taken away.