Things are heating up in Florida and I’m not talking about the temperature which today hit 94 degrees in Palm Beach. I’m talking about the attempt by Florida’s Attorney General to behave as if she’s on the payroll of the NRA. And since Granny Hammer, the NRA’s Florida lobbyist, is right now laying low until the sh*tstorm about Wayne-o’s profligate spending goes away, at least Gun-nut Nation has AG Ashley Moody to carry on the good fight.
And the good fight involves an attempt by the relatives of several Parkland victims to put a citizen’s initiative on the 2020 ballot that would amend the State Constitution and ban assault rifles in the Gunshine State. The backers of this initiative have collected enough signatures to get their petition approved by the Florida Supreme Court, which would then allow them to collect another pile of signatures required to put the amendment up for a statewide vote.
You can read the Constitutional amendment right here, and then take a look at Moody’s attempt to block the amendment right here. Her statement that any semi-automatic rifle with more than a ten-round capacity is just another standard sporting gun, is right out of the playbook that the gun industry has been using for years.
I have owned and hunted with semi-automatic rifles and shotguns made by Remington, Browning, Winchester, Benelli and a few more, and none of them took a magazine which held more than ten rounds. You don’t go out into the woods to shoot Bambi by spraying ammo all over the place. When the hi-flyers come over on their way to Florida, you’re lucky if you get off two shots before the birds disappear out of sight.
What makes an assault rifle so dangerous and lethal is the fact that the magazine attaches from beneath the gun, which means that no matter how large it is or how many rounds it holds, it can’t prevent a shooter from aiming the gun. The venerable M-1 Garand rifle, which George Patton called “the greatest battle implement ever devised,” was a top-loading semi-auto that only held 8 rounds. When the military decided to go to a full-auto gun, Gene Stoner designed the first M-16 to take a bottom-loading magazine thus increasing the firepower of the gun. And before you start screaming at me about how the gun-grabbers don’t know the difference between a full-auto military gun and a semi-auto sporting gun, the current battle gun known as the M-4 shoots in semi-automatic mode.
Believe it or not, I happen to find shooting an assault rifle to be a lot of fun. You set up a bunch of bottles down range, you bang away 30 rounds without stopping to reload. It reminds me of the old-time shooting gallery at the circus or the county fair. So I understand that gun nuts will be plenty pissed off if they have to give up this beloved toy. But no matter how you slice it or dice it, a bottom-loading rifle that can take a magazine which holds thirty, forty or even fifty rounds is a killing machine.
Yesterday a young man cut a hole in a fence, walked into a garlic festival in Gilroy, CA, and used an AK-47 to shoot 15 people, of whom ‘only’ 3 died. He was nineteen, he bought the gun legally a few weeks previously, and other than some suggestive internet rants the day of the shooting, nobody has yet come forward who claims prior knowledge of the event.
So the battle is now joined between the gun industry and their self-appointed public relations director Ashley Moody on the one hand, and the gun-control ‘nuts’ in Florida on the other. The truth is that Gun-nut Nation is terrified that a state like Florida might actually decide that certain guns are simply too lethal to be sold. After all, we’re not talking about a Communist state like Massachusetts or New York. We’re talking about a state which understands that the most sacred duty of every citizen is to protect hearth and home with a gun.
Jul 30, 2019 @ 12:50:34
but you don’t like being labeled as a “Gun Banner”?
Jul 30, 2019 @ 13:05:48
Lost between the extremes of AR banners and those who want no regulations at all is a third option, i.e., graduated licensing midway between a fully functional machine gun and grandpa’s Model 70. Full auto weapons have been heavily regulated since the NFA was passed in 1934 and are both rare and almost never used in crimes; you have to jump through additional hoops to own one. The problem with these guns under discussion is any snotty nosed bozo, drenched in social media lunacy, can walk into Fred’s Guns and Tackle and buy a modern, military style rifle only differing in not having selective fire. He can then act out his fantasy until he is shot by the cops.
Although all men are created equal, they don’t all turn out equal. I doubt the nation is in peril because someone like Mike or Yours Truly has a “Weapon ‘O War” (rarely defined very well) that is fun to shoot (you still have one, right, Mike? That Mini-14 used to be on your web site–the rifle on my editor’s page photo is one as well). There is a middle ground if we can dispense with the all-important culture war aspects.
The 2A was premised on a citizen militia, hence an individual right to KBA. That doesn’t mean you want someone in your militia who is as likely to shoot your wife or kid as to shoot the actual nation’s foe. Some vetting is most certainly Constitutional even with a conservative court, i.e., the Kavanaugh dissent in Heller II.
Jul 30, 2019 @ 13:26:10
I agree with Khal. A graduated approach would likely work quite well.
Jul 31, 2019 @ 14:06:49
Speaking of ARs. Sacramento Bee reporter Ryan Sabalow reports that the Gilroy shooter used an SKS, not an AK, but did not say if it was an original example with the internal magazine, legal in California, or modified to be illegal in California. Also, I heard on NPR that the shooter was apparently into the White Supremacist social media circuit.
Maybe we ought to have a rule: you can either own guns or go off the rails with extremist claptrap. I know that would never pass a 1A test, so I am being slightly sarcastic. Still, this whole thing reminds me again of the fire triangle as applied to gun violence: Volatility, Social Media, and Guns.
Bang.
Jul 31, 2019 @ 16:41:23
It has been stated that he illegally transported said firearm into California, making him a criminal before the act, so saying he legally purchased it is a stretch since he had intent to illegally bring it to CA. Again, it’s been stated, not 100% fact yet. Your logic is flawed still, a select fire gun, by assault rifle definition MUST have full auto selection and capability. Civilian AR’s by design do not and are not assault rifles and are so not NFA controlled. Another flaw is that the gun is only as capable as the human firing it, otherwise it sits on the table and does nothing. It is the human that needs to be dealt with. Next flaw, bottom loading has nothing to do with it, what about the Bren, the SAW, any other belt fed system that has no magazine on the bottom? If you are going to classify AR’s because of bottom feed then you are sadly mistaken and not such a gun expert.
Jul 31, 2019 @ 19:47:43
Wow, so punish the masses, because of less then 1 percent of the population of the U.S. is killed by a firearm. Or, I know ban the People the Right to Defend themselves from the Government, so that Nazism or Socialist Communism walks right in and takes over.
But that never happens does it. No Government would go and do that right? Not a single one of my firearms have ever gotten up and killed someone, not once.
Here is an idea lets look at the people involved and go after them. Cigarettes still kill more people today then firearms, still legal, Marijuana, Alcohol kill more people then guns all they do is add a Car/bullet. Oh Cars kill more people then firearms. All legal none protected by the 2nd Amendment and are a privilege not a right.