The battle lines
are being drawn regarding the issue of proposed new federal firearms
legislation and as led by California's senior U.S. Senator Diane
Feistein.
Long an advocate
for ever-more-strict firearms laws, Feistein's latest proposal - to be
introduced next month in the new Congress - is breathtaking in its scope
and expansiveness.
Here is the
National Rifle Association's press release on the proposal, using bullet
points to address each of Feistein's expected specific points. (Note, one can receive updates from Feistein on her expected piece of legislation. The link is contained within the following NRA statement):
Feinstein
Goes For Broke With New Gun-Ban Bill
Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.)—author of the federal “assault weapon” and “large”
ammunition magazine ban of 1994-2004—has announced that on the first day of the
new Congress—January 3rd— she will introduce a bill to
which her 1994 ban will pale by comparison.
On Dec. 17th,
Feinstein said, “I have been working with my staff for
over a year on this legislation” and “It will be carefully
focused.” Indicating the depth of her research on the issue, she said on
Dec. 21st that she had personally looked at pictures of
guns in 1993, and again in 2012.
According to a Dec.
27th posting on
Sen. Feinstein’s website and a draft of the bill obtained by NRA-ILA, the new
ban would, among other things, adopt new definitions of “assault weapon” that
would affect a much larger variety of firearms, require current owners of such
firearms to register them with the federal government under the National
Firearms Act, and require forfeiture of the firearms upon the deaths of their
current owners. Some of the changes in Feinstein’s new bill are as follows:
·
Reduces, from two to one, the number of
permitted external features on various firearms. The
1994 ban permitted various firearms to be manufactured only if they were
assembled with no more than one feature listed in the law. Feinstein’s new bill
would prohibit the manufacture of the same firearms with even one of the
features.
·
Adopts new lists of prohibited external
features. For example,
whereas the 1994 ban applied to a rifle or shotgun the “pistol grip” of which
“protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon,” the new bill would
drastically expand the definition to include any “grip . . . or any other
characteristic that can function as a grip.” Also, the new bill adds “forward
grip” to the list of prohibiting features for rifles, defining it as “a grip
located forward of the trigger that functions as a pistol grip.” Read literally
and in conjunction with the reduction from two features to one, the new
language would apply to every detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifle. At a
minimum, it would, for example, ban all models of the AR-15, even those
developed for compliance with California’s highly restrictive ban.
· Carries
hyperbole further than the 1994 ban. Feinstein’s
1994 ban listed “grenade launcher” as one of the prohibiting features for
rifles. Her 2013 bill carries goes even further into the ridiculous, by also
listing “rocket launcher.” Such devices are restricted under the National
Firearms Act and, obviously, are not standard components of the firearms
Feinstein wants to ban. Perhaps a subsequent Feinstein bill will add “nuclear
bomb,” “particle beam weapon,” or something else equally far-fetched to the
features list.
· Expands
the definition of “assault weapon” by including:
·
Three very popular rifles: The M1 Carbine (introduced
in 1944 and for many years sold by the federal government to individuals
involved in marksmanship competition), a model of the Ruger Mini-14, and most
or all models of the SKS.
·
Any “semiautomatic, centerfire, or
rimfire rifle that has a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than
10 rounds,” except for tubular-magazine .22s.
·
Any “semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle that has an
overall length of less than 30 inches,” any “semiautomatic handgun with a fixed
magazine that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds,” and any
semi-automatic handgun that has a threaded barrel.
· Requires
owners of existing “assault weapons” to register them with the federal government
under the National Firearms Act (NFA). The
NFA imposes a $200 tax per firearm, and requires an owner to submit photographs
and fingerprints to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
(BATFE), to inform the BATFE of the address where the firearm will be kept, and
to obtain the BATFE’s permission to transport the firearm across state lines.
· Prohibits
the transfer of “assault weapons.”
Owners of other firearms, including those covered by the NFA, are permitted to
sell them or pass them to heirs. However, under Feinstein’s new bill, “assault
weapons” would remain with their current owners until their deaths, at which
point they would be forfeited to the government.
· Prohibits
the domestic manufacture and the importation of magazines that hold more than
10 rounds of ammunition.
The 1994 ban allowed the importation of such magazines that were manufactured
before the ban took effect. Whereas the 1994 ban protected gun owners from
errant prosecution by making the government prove when a magazine was made, the
new ban includes no such protection. The new ban also requires firearm dealers
to certify the date of manufacture of any >10-round magazine sold, a
virtually impossible task, given that virtually no magazines are stamped with
their date of manufacture.
Targets
handguns in defiance of the Supreme Court.
The Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the
Second Amendment protects the right to have handguns for self-defense, in large
part on the basis of the fact handguns are the type of firearm “overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that
lawful purpose.” Semi-automatic pistols, which are the most popular handguns
today, are designed to use detachable magazines, and the magazines
“overwhelmingly chosen” by Americans for self-defense are those that hold more
than 10 rounds. Additionally, Feinstein’s list of nearly 1,000 firearms
exempted by name (see next paragraph) contains not a single handgun. Sen.
Feinstein advocated banning handguns before being elected to the Senate, though
she carried a handgun for her own personal protection.
·
Contains a
larger piece of window dressing than the 1994 ban. Whereas the
1994 ban included a list of approximately 600 rifles and shotguns exempted from
the ban by name, the new bill’s list is increased to nearly 1,000 rifles and
shotguns. Other than for the 11 detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles and
one other semi-automatic rifle included in the list, however, the list appears
to be pointless, because a separate provision of the bill exempts “any firearm
that is manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action.”
The
Department of Justice study. On her website,
Feinstein claims that a study for the DOJ found that the 1994 ban resulted in a
6.7 percent decrease in murders. To the contrary, this is what the study said:
“At best, the assault weapons ban can have only a limited effect on total gun
murders, because the banned weapons and magazines were never involved in more
than a modest fraction of all gun murders. Our best estimate is that the ban
contributed to a 6.7 percent decrease in total gun murders between 1994 and
1995. . . . However, with only one year of post-ban data, we cannot rule out
the possibility that this decrease reflects chance year-to-year variation
rather than a true effect of the ban. Nor can we rule out effects of
other features of the 1994 Crime Act or a host of state and local initiatives
that took place simultaneously.”
“Assault weapon”
numbers and murder trends. From the
imposition of Feinstein’s “assault weapon” ban (Sept. 13, 1994) through the
present, the number of “assault weapons” has risen dramatically. For example,
the most common firearm that Feinstein considers an “assault weapon” is the
AR-15 rifle, the manufacturing numbers of which can be gleaned from the BATFE’s
firearm manufacturer reports, available here.
From 1995 through 2011, the number of AR-15s—all models of which Feinstein’s
new bill defines as “assault weapons”—rose by over 2.5 million. During the same
period, the nation’s murder rate fell 48 percent, to a 48-year low. According
to the FBI, 8.5 times as many people are murdered
with knives, blunt objects and bare hands, as with rifles of any
type.
Traces: Feinstein
makes several claims, premised on firearm traces, hoping to convince people
that her 1994 ban reduced the (relatively infrequent) use of “assault weapons”
in crime. However, traces do not indicate how often any type of gun is used in
crime. As the Congressional Research Service and the BATFE have explained, not
all firearms that are traced have been used in crime, and not all firearms used
in crime are traced. Whether a trace occurs depends on whether a law
enforcement agency requests that a trace be conducted. Given that existing
“assault weapons” were exempted from the 1994 ban and new “assault weapons”
continued to be made while the ban was in effect, any reduction in the
percentage of traces accounted for by “assault weapons” during the ban, would
be attributable to law enforcement agencies losing interest in tracing the
firearms, or law enforcement agencies increasing their requests for traces on
other types of firearms, as urged by the BATFE for more than a decade.
Call Your U.S.
Senators and Representative: As noted, Feinstein intends to introduce
her bill on January 3rd. President Obama has said that gun
control will be a “central issue” of his final term in office, and he has vowed
to move quickly on it.
Contact
your members of Congress at 202-224-3121 to urge them to oppose Sen.
Feinstein’s 2013 gun and magazine ban. Our elected representatives in Congress
must here from you if we are going to defeat this gun ban proposal. You can
write your Representatives and Senators by using our Write Your Representatives
tool here: http://www.nraila.org/get-involved-locally/grassroots/write-your-reps.aspx Millions of Americans own so-called “assault weapons” and tens of millions own “large” magazines, for self-defense, target shooting, and hunting. For more information about the history of the “assault weapon” issue, please visit www.GunBanFacts.com.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn
No comments:
Post a Comment