Now that the 116th Congress is going to convene in January with a solid blue House majority, and to the extent that this majority owes something to the hard work of my Gun-control Nation friends, perhaps it’s time to have a serious and deliberate discussion about the gun-control legislation that might begun to be put into place.
After all, for the last eight years the gun-control gang could talk themselves blue in the face about assault rifle bans, comprehensive background checks and all that other good stuff. But the odds that any gun-control law might rear its head and emerge from Congress ranged from zero to zilch. Guess what? For the same reason that the blue Senate team slipped backward in 2018, the GOP in 2020 will have a difficult time holding its majority in the Upper House. And anyone who wants to make book that Sleazy Don will be sitting in the Oval Office in 2021 better be willing to take very, very long odds.
Since it normally requires multiple Congressional sessions for a serious gun-control measure to get up to speed (the 1968 GCA68 law was initially introduced in 1953; the Brady bill that was passed in 1993 was first filed in 1991,) the folks who will be creating, pushing and sustaining the narrative for a new gun law better start working on it now.
The two legislative remedies for gun violence which appear to have the best chance of ending up in serious and positive floor votes are comprehensive background checks and a renewal of the assault weapons ban. The former initiative appears to have support across the board, the latter could easily happen if a couple more nuts wander into a school, a shopping center, a house of worship or some other public venue and start blasting away.
The problem with both of these gun-control strategies, however, is that they don’t really get to the core of why we have a problem with gun violence and therefore, even if enacted, wouldn’t make that much of a difference in the rates of gun violence that we currently absorb.
The core problem is that the system that regulates the ownership and use of guns is fundamentally flawed because it is based on regulating the behavior of gun owners, rather than on the design and function of the guns themselves. If I walk into a gun shop today and but a rusted, old shotgun that probably doesn’t even work, I have to jump through the exact, same legal hoops that I would jump through if I bought a 16-shot Glock 19, along with 4 extra hi-capacity mags. That old shotgun will only injure someone if I load it with modern ammunition, pull the trigger and the gun blows up. How many of the 125,000 gun injuries suffered last year resulted from someone using a Glock or another concealable, hi-powered handgun? Most of those injuries, that’s for sure.
Again and again the discussion among gun-control advocates turns on the ‘fact’ that we own so many guns – somewhere between 300 and 400 million. But a majority of those guns are sporting rifles and shotguns which rarely show up in gun crimes at all. We are the only country which gives its residents relatively free access to handguns; we are the only country which suffers from an unacceptable level of gun violence. Want to end gun violence? Get rid of the guns that cause the violence.
Notice I didn’t state my approval for a handgun ban. But personally speaking, I have never supported an advocacy narrative simply because it might succeed. I support advocacy that is rooted in truth. And the truth is that handguns cause gun violence. Period. End of story. End of debate.
Nov 26, 2018 @ 10:35:58
The Left screamed and writhed at the notion of a national reciprocity bill. But I would phrase it thus: Create a national handgun license that is middle of the road, rather than a “Constitutional Carry” or a Democratic People’s Republic of California near-ban. Make it apply to handguns and ARs. It doesn’t need to be prohibitive to make a dent although as Mike says, as long as we have citizen access to handguns, some will find a way to turn those right hands into wrong ones.
Perhaps, if we could get consensus from those non-extremist states, we could put a finger in the dike of those Indiana to Chicago Handgun Express lanes.
Speaking of the DPRC, a friend of mine retired and his wife convinced him to move there. He now has to register his collectable M1A1 as an “assault rifle” although I doubt seriously these rare and expensive guns end up shooting up churches and schools.
Nov 26, 2018 @ 11:10:18
Increased certification based on firearm, but with no registration of firearms or bans. If sophisticated firearms required escalating levels of FREE classes with testing the crazed would be deterred and those who are responsible would be able to still own and use. Look at full auto, not many crimes committed with them.