As might be expected after the horrible mass murders in El Paso and Dayton, the hard left Democrats are calling for bans on high-capacity magazines and so-called assault weapons. But let’s take a look at what that really means.
With a look back to the not too distant past when we actually had such bans in federal law.
Under the expired assault weapons ban law championed by Sen Feinstein and others, bans were imposed on certain rifles that fell into the definition of being an “assault weapon.” But that definition in the law made no sense whatsoever.
It relied solely on certain physical appearances of a weapon, such as having a pistol grip, a detachable magazine, etc. If it had 2 or more of the features, it was deemed an assault weapon and was banned. Irrespective of the fact that the definition had virtually nothing to do with the actual functioning of the weapon.
And even more ridiculous was the fact that thousands of weapons that had the prohibited features were already out in the hands of thousands of law-abiding citizens, who were not prohibited from continuing to own them.
The high capacity magazine ban was similarly ridiculous.
The law prohibited any new magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds of ammunition but did not ban any magazines that had been manufactured before the effective date of the law. Thus, between the time of enactment of the law and its effective date, many manufacturers worked overtime to crank out thousands of high-capacity magazines. The result was that even when the ban was in effect for several years, it was very easy to acquire and own high capacity magazines legally.
Confiscation
The unspoken goal of the Democrat left is confiscation of any weapons they do not like, which means most firearms. Some of those politicians have actually admitted that has always been their goal.
But they have either failed or refused to take into account (a) the Second Amendment to our Constitution, and recent Supreme Court decisions upholding the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and possess firearms; (b) in some countries without Second Amendment protections and where confiscation has been tried, it has been an abject failure; and (c) the real problem is the disturbed people who commit these crimes.
There are laws in some states that provide for involuntary commitment and mental evaluations, under due process protections, of persons reasonably believed to pose a danger to themselves or others. Such a law (the Baker Act) has existed in Florida for many years but was never used by the hard left Dems controlling political life in Broward County at which the Parkland School shooting occurred, notwithstanding numerous incidents involving the ultimate shooter that would have provided a more than adequate basis for an involuntary commitment and mental evaluation of him before the school shooting.
We now have been told that at least one of the two most recent shooters posted screeds on hate web sites indicating, at least in part, their intention to do what they did. So, where were our vaunted federal law enforcement agencies that should have been monitoring those sites, tracking down the IP addresses of the posters, and establishing surveillance of the posters that might have prevented the tragedies?
Let’s be clear: the gun-grabbing left want to confiscate all of our guns.
