Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
As there has been a recent tragic misuse of a firearm, and non-stop coverage of every possible aspect of the story in the some 72 hours since we all learned of the incident, the Left has already begun trotting out their gun control “ideas.” It’s only likely to get worse as the weeks wear on and foolish people demand “action.” Meanwhile, the panderer-in-chief is said to already be contemplating “executive action” on gun control. In yesterday’s piece, I briefly touched upon the Left’s newest gun control idea – that of foregoing due process for anyone on an FBI terror watch or no-fly list and denying them their human rights preemptively. So, today I figured is as good a day as any to discuss the rest of their “ideas” that we’ll all be hearing about for weeks to come – probably right up to the Olympics, when stories about zika virus and raw sewage will come to the fore.
“Assault Weapon” Ban
Already, many media outlets and pundits have made reference to the 1994-2004 Clinton crime bill/Brady Bill and the “assault weapon ban” contained therein – some even contending that AR-15 rifles were banned under the law, they weren’t. The Brady Bill limited the capacity of new-production pistol magazines to 10 rounds and limited the number of safety-enhancing features certain “assault weapons” (what grownups call “sporting rifles”) could have. For example, a civilian, semi-auto version of the
AK-47 could have the pistol grip designed for it, but not a flash suppressor as well. In the Left’s “mind,” a rifle that is more comfortable to hold with more manageable recoil is less safe than one that is unwieldy.
The main result of the Brady Bill and its 10-round handgun magazine limit was twofold. First, it more than doubled the retail price of the now-finite number of full-capacity magazines for handguns – so, the typical 15 round magazine for an S&W 59 series, or a Glock 19 or Beretta 92 went from about $25-30 to $50-60. Also, it sparked a rush among gun makers to cram the mandated 10-round maximum into the tiniest package possible – enter the Glock 26 and 27.
As far as reducing violent crime, there is exactly no evidence to suggest the ban was at all effective. It was mercifully allowed to sunset in 2004. A 2000 study of the law’s effects on homicide and suicide rates found no change in homicide rates and a slight decrease in firearm suicide rates among those 55 and older. There was no corresponding decline in suicide overall, meaning people simply found another ways to kill themselves.
The “Gun-show loophole” and “universal background checks”
The famous “gun-show loophole” is the myth the Left invented in the 1990s that contends that people can go to gun shows, which must sound like scary things to the Left, and buy a gun from a private seller no questions asked. While that statement is technically true, it also misses the point. The Left attempted to portray gun shows as illicit swap-meets where criminals bought and sold guns among themselves when, in reality, booth space is expensive and only occupied by licensed dealers who bring a bunch of inventory to move. Occasionally, a prospective private seller and prospective private buyer bump into each other on the show floor and cut out the middle-man – but this wasn’t unique to gun shows. Private citizens have been buying and selling firearms through newspaper classifieds for years, and now the Internet has taken over that function.
It’s not gun shows, per se. What’s at actual issue here is that there is no requirement that a private seller of a gun put a prospective buyer through a background check. To the exceedingly simple, this seems like an easy “problem” to remedy – simply pass a law requiring that all firearm sales and transfers, either between a licensed dealer and a non-dealer, or between two non-dealers, be subject to a background check for the buyer. And indeed, making such a law would be as easy as writing the above down on a piece of paper and getting enough “ayes” to send it to Obama’s desk. Enforcing it, however, would be akin to getting the man to say “Islamic terrorism.”
The reason such a law is inherently unenforceable is because no one in government knows who owns what guns – there is no registry. So, if Person A wants to sell a gun the government doesn’t know he has, and Person B decides to buy it, the government has no way of knowing Person B now owns the gun the government didn’t know person A owned to begin with. The idea of “universal background checks” hinges upon the notion that Person A will arrange to meet Person B at a gun store, where they will pay the owner to run Person B through a background check and Person A will only go through with the sale if Person B passes the check. The gun dealer collects a fee for his trouble. Again, however, since the government didn’t know Person A had the gun to begin with, they’ll never know he didn’t go to a gun store with Person B and put him through a check before the sale was made. In short, such a law is inherently unenforceable. Of course, the Left thinks it has a solution to that problem. Guess what? It’s another law!
Universal Registration
The only way to solve the problems associated with the idea of “universal background checks” is to make it so the government does know who owns what guns ahead of time, so that any illicit transfers can be traced back to the seller. Many have proposed instituting a registration requirement for all new firearm purchases from licensed dealers. This is doable, because the government can track licensed gun dealers somewhat easily – they are, after all, licensed.
The problem with such a registry is that it would necessarily begin with roughly the 415,506,626th privately owned firearm in the United States, making said registry pretty limited in usefulness. Some have suggested “forcing” gun owners to bring their firearms in to be put on a registry. The problem with that suggestion is the same as the problem of requiring “universal background checks” to begin with – it’s unenforceable because the government still doesn’t know who owns what guns now anyway. About the only thing they could do is send a letter to every household in the USA warning the residents to come in and register all their guns, or else something. A few would be sufficiently frightened by the state to register their Ruger 10/22 that’s been in the back of the closet gathering rust and dust for decades – but most would just toss the letter into the trash with the rest of the junk mail.
Additionally, it was the Gun Control Act of 1968 that required gun makers to put serial numbers on all guns. Many guns made prior to 1968 have no serial number, making them rather difficult to register.
That a “registry” which only contains a small fraction of the total items it seeks to register is useless should go without saying.
“Smart Guns”
Some bad ideas never go away, and this one keeps reappearing every so often, particularly after a tragedy. The idea is to make it so a gun can only be fired by its rightful owner something like the “Lawgivers” in Judge Dredd. Plenty of methods to make this work have been proposed. One involved a magnetic ring that had to be positioned just right so as to draw back a spring-loaded pin that prevented the trigger from being pulled on a handgun. Others use radio transmitters in a bracelet to talk to a receiver in the pistol to unlock it. More recently, the Left’s real geniuses have proposed embedding a thumb-print scanner in the grip of the pistol so it can be unlocked like a new iPhone.
In terms of actual functionality, all so-called “Smart Gun” designs make it so the default setting of a firearm is to not work and remain non-functional until some external criteria is met. To anyone who actually knows what a defensive firearm is for, the idea of having a gun designed to not work as a default is asinine. The idea of adding sensitive electronics to a device that experiences constant shock and gets filthy dirty is exceedingly stupid. The idea of adding sensitive electronics to something someone may need to rely upon to save their lives in an heartbeat is insane. I own the second-most-advanced iPhone on Earth, the original 6. The iPhone is the flagship product of one of the world’s top and most recognized tech companies. The 6 represents what was state of the art not that long ago, just before the slightly-better 6S was launched; and yet the damn thing crashes, reboots, freezes and generally screws up more often than my old iPhone 4 did.
Having to rely on a computer to recognize my thumb-print while it’s busily downloading and installing a software update because it’s 3 a.m. and the network is more open, when I need the gun said computer is attached to, because it’s 3 a.m. and someone just kicked in my door, seems like an awesome way to get shot. No thanks.
“High-Capacity” Magazine Bans
The Left likes to float this idea, which was already part of the Brady Bill, as a near cure-all for violence of all sorts. As mentioned previously, the only net effect of limiting handguns to 10 rounds was to give rise to the “sub-compact” category of handguns that fit all 10 rounds into a package so small that it often left no room for one’s little finger on the grip. In reality, rifle and handgun magazines are exceedingly simple devices – it’s a box, a spring and the little tray the cartridges rest upon, which we call the “follower” as it follows the cartridges. As such, they aren’t expensive to produce, so there are currently an awful lot of them in circulation. Banning further manufacture or import won’t dramatically limit the availability of full-capacity magazines, it will only increase their price, as the 1994-2004 Brady Bill has already demonstrated.
Semi-automatic ban
Many on the Left, including Bernie Sanders, have suggested banning all semi-automatic firearms. This is, of course, asinine on many levels. First, the term “semi-automatic” refers to how a firearm functions, not to a specific sort of firearm. Civilian AR-15 rifles are semi-automatic, as is every double-action revolver. A semi-automatic is any firearm that will shoot once per pull of the trigger without the shooter doing anything else between shots. Banning all semi-automatics would leave only bolt-, pump-, and lever-action rifles and single-action revolvers available to American citizens. Meanwhile criminals would be free to avail themselves of the millions of semi-automatics already in circulation. So, while it is possible to ban new sales of semi-automatic rifles and handguns, doing so won’t actually keep anyone safer. Despite the media hype, semi-automatic rifles of all sorts, AR-15 included, are used in a tiny percentage of violent crimes.
An “epidemic of gun violence”
The Left likes to say there is an “epidemic of gun violence” in the USA despite the fact that reality refuses to bear out that assertion. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 11,208 firearm homicides in 2013 and almost twice as many firearm suicides, 21,175. There were an additional 84,258 nonfatal firearm-related injuries that year, or just over half as many nonfatal injuries attributed to ladders.
Going back to the firearm homicides, the government estimates that roughly 13 percent of homicides are gang-related. So, in 2013 there were 9,751 non-gang-related firearm homicides. That same year 32,719 Americans died in traffic accidents.
According to the left-leaning Violence Policy Center, there are on average more than 67,000 defensive uses of a firearm per year, usually without a shot being fired. Other studies have put that number as high as 2 million defensive uses of a firearm per year, but let’s stick with the low-low-end estimate from the very much anti-gun Violence Policy Center.
Using the Left’s own number, it becomes clear they are arguing that the best way to prevent about 9,800 people from being murdered each year (not counting those for whom being gunned down is an occupational hazard) is to remove the tools 67,000 Americans use each year to prevent harm to themselves or their property.
That such assertion is really damn stupid goes without saying. Or, it should, but this is the United States of America in 2016, so:
Seeking to restrict access to the tools that, by your own estimates at least 67,000 Americans use each year to defend themselves against crime, in an effort to prevent 9,800 murders per year is exceptionally and unforgivably stupid.
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