ENOUGH! No More Restrictions!

WE DRAW THE LINE HERE. 
NO MORE RESTRICTIONS! 

In the wake of two tragic shootings, President Obama assigned Vice President Joe Biden, a man who never met a gun restriction he didn't like, the task of recommending changes to deal with violent crime and "gun violence". Does anyone really think that the result of Biden's "panel" was not preordained, if not pre-written?

As a result, the Vice President's panel made many of the same predictable recommendations we've heard proposed by the anti-gun lobby for years. These recommendations will do NOTHING to prevent or reduce the kind of violence the President (and Democrat party) is using to pass these laws.  It was too predictable and with all the media attention, what else would a gun-hating Chicago-style bureaucrat say, but... 

Round Up Twice The Number of Usual Suspects!

Ban Assault Weapons, Magazine Limits, Background Checks

Instead of making V.P. Biden's meetings productive and creating a national dialogue, the President will pay token attention to those recommendations and push for a major gun control bill.  How do we know that?  Just a day or two after announcing Biden's assignment the President asked people to tell their congress-critters to ban assault weapons. 

Why go to the trouble of having a "fact-finding" panel when you've already decided on your course of action? Simple. To pay lip service to all the voices that blamed violent media or demanded more mental health care.  Sure, there will be some attention on those issues, but Obama's main thrust will be to demagogue the firearm industry and gun owners.  

Here are some of the ideas coming out of this administration and why they miss the mark. 

• Assault weapons ban with a broader definition that includes one "military characteristic".  
• Limited magazine capacity to 10 shots
• Background checks on every sale or transfer of firearms
• Expand the list of "prohibited persons" to include "dangerous persons
• Tighten the ban on so-called "cop killer" armor piercing bullets

The 1994 ban on "Assault Weapons" had no measurable impact on crime.  That's what the government's own studies showed as well as a couple of independent studies. Crimes with these weapons remain low.  Rifles account for about 2.5% of homicides and assault rifles make up only a small portion of the rifles used.  In 2011, there were 323 homicides with rifles nationwide making homicide with a rifle almost literally a one in a million occurrence!  Note that the total number of homicides in 2011 was 12,664, of which 8583 were committed by some type of firearm. 

Proponents say that the ban didn't go far enough or wasn't tight enough to prevent people from circumventing the law. Be that as it may, a law that does not lower crime but does strip people of important choices is unjust.  

The gun control lobby (and the President) want us to believe in their propaganda message that "If it saves just one life it's worth it".  If this is true - that banning a whole range of firearms to save just one [child's] life is worth all the negative consequences of the ban - then it stands to reason it works both ways.  If an AR-15 saves just one [child's] life, having them around is worth it.  So, here it is.  A Mount Royal Village, Texas boy who used an assault rifle to protect himself and his sister when two men broke into their home.  No matter. The idiots in the gun control lobby will trot out 1,001 excuses to dismiss this story as irrelevant. 

WW-II Rifles - Which is an "assault weapon"

"Assault Weapon" is a political term invented by the Violence Policy Center, a spin-off of the anti-gun Brady Campaign.  It was intended to confuse the public's perception about exactly what guns were targeted with anti-gun laws. These groups further encouraged confusion by letting (or helping) the media to show video of fully-automatic weapons being fired.  Thus "Assault Weapon" is a grouping that includes whatever gun(s) they add to the group rather than something that is easily articulated.  This verbal dishonesty allows them to include all forms of firearms, such as home-defense shotguns, some handguns, a lot of lightweight, small-caliber rifles as well as civilian versions of battle rifles.  

Take a look at the two rifles in the photo above. Which is an "assault weapon"?  Under the 1994 ban, neither would be classed as an assault weapon.  In 2013, Diane Feinstein's bill would certainly ban one of these classic rifles, perhaps both (the devil is in the unreleased details).  If you guessed the magazine-fed carbine on the bottom would be an "assault weapon", go to the head of the class.  The semi-automatic .30 caliber M1 Carbine, with its 15-round magazine is a target of the new gun ban.  Keep in mind that our elected officials and media use adjectives like "high powered" just before "assault weapon" to instill fear in the public.  Just to show you how false this is, the M1 Garand, shown above the carbine, holds 8 shots of .30-06 ammo, but there is a big difference in the power of each cartridge. Take a look at the cartridges these guns fire. 

.30-06 Springfield of the M1 Garand (top) versus the
.30 Carbine (bottom) cartridge of the M1 Carbine.

The M1 Carbine cartridge is a smaller cartridge resembling pistol ammo more than rifle ammo.  The range of the larger .30-06 is about 800 yards, and the .30 Carbine is effective to about 150 yards. Yet, political wags tell us the little carbine is a "high powered" gun that must be controlled!  

In WW-II the carbine was issued in lieu of harder to produce .45 caliber pistols. It was issued to cooks, clerks, truck drivers and artillery crews. It was considered a "light carbine" with ballistic performance similar to the .357 Magnum revolver cartridge. There were rumors during Korea, where the M1 Carbine was widely used, that it would not penetrate the heavy winter jackets worn by the North Korean and Chinese troops when fired at over 100 yards.  In contrast, the .30-06 Springfield standard ammunition could penetrate through a spare rifle magazine on the front of a Chinese soldier, his jacket and exit the soldier's body at over 200 yards.  But somehow the M1 Carbine is a "dangerous assault weapon".

The larger .30-06 Springfield cartridge of the M1 Garand versus
the smaller "intermediate range" 5.56mm (.223) for the AR-15

Perhaps more telling is the difference between the AR-15's cartridge and the M1 Garand. Once again, the .30-06 Springfield cartridge is compared to the modern 5.56mm (.223) cartridge of the AR-15.  As you can see, the AR-15 cartridge is smaller, shoots a smaller bullet with a shorter effective range.  

The .30-06 Springfield was the main rifle cartridge of WW-II and in post-war years the top hunting cartridge in North America. It has good penetration on game and much better penetration on metal targets than either the .30 Carbine or the 5.56mm cartridge. 

Standard capacity magazines save lives.

The limit on magazine capacity makes no sense either. All of these laws will exempt police and military use of "high capacity" (standard issue size) magazines, but limit civilians to 10 shots in whatever guns are not banned.  Gun control advocates claim this will somehow limit the number of victims at a shooting scene because the shooter will have to reload.  "That will give someone maybe a few seconds to stop him" they've claimed. Really? A few seconds for you to observe, make up your mind, steel yourself for a fight and cover whatever distance between you and the shooter? They've got to be kidding! If you're not convinced, watch this video of someone well practiced in changing magazines. 

Travis Tomasie of the U.S. Army shooting team 

demonstrates a fast (0.44 sec.) competition reload.

If multiple intruders break into your home while you are there they pose an immediate threat to you and your family. If you call the police and if they respond in time, the police will operate in several 2 or 4-man teams, wearing body armor, coordinate their actions by two-way radios, carrying assault weapons and handguns with 15 to 30 round magazines that are outfitted with laser sights and/or intense flashlights, have flash-bang grenades available, possibly with a helicopter overhead equipped with infra-red night vision and a spotlight, plus a SWAT team on call if needed.   

In the citizen's world, however, (s)he is rudely awakened by the noise of the intrusion, will be operating in the dark, on his/her own, barefoot, lightly dressed without spare magazines readily available, with no back-up, no SWAT team on-call and possibly half as many shots as just one of the intruders.  This is what our government officials deem as "sufficient" for your protection.  


Expanding Background Checks With Dangerous Persons

The current system in the National Instant Check System (NICS). A licensed dealer feeds your personal information and the type of gun purchased into NICS. This system approves or rejects the buyer based on their legal and mental history.  The system can issue a response of "proceed", "deny" or "delay". The delay happens when there is uncertainty if the buyer is legally qualified (i.e. a person with a similar name and description has a felony record). For delayed purchases, NICS has three days to issue an approval and if not, the sale proceeds anyhow.   

The NICS system combines records from several databases, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) records wanted people and protection orders, the Interstate Identification Index (III) for criminal records and the NICS Index which has information about persons predetermined to be prohibited. 

The President's call for agencies to share more information with NICS would seem logical. However, there are problems.

Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who are having difficulties adjusting may, through the VA hospitals, voluntarily appoint someone to help them manage their affairs while they seek counseling and treatment.  This is very helpful to battle-weary soldiers returning to face things like a divorce, a critically ill child, substantial financial debt due to their service or a combination of problems. Except under Obama's plan, these veterans would be forever listed as mentally ill and prohibited from owning or buying any guns. Why should our soldiers be forced to choose between retaining their constitutional rights or seeking a benefit of their service?  

Then, there are things like the "No-Fly List" and the "Terrorist Watch List". If people like Ted Kennedy can find themselves grounded by the no-fly list, adding these kinds of quasi-legal lists to the NICS check will abuse the rights of thousands.  These lists are "secret" and they won't tell you how you got onto it and if you ask to be removed, they may just ignore you with impunity.  A simple "computer glitch" could flag everyone as being prohibited through one of these lists and there is no way to verify it. 

Cop-Killer Armor Piercing Bullets
Another red-herring by the gun control lobby is the idea there are thousands of people running about with armor piercing (AP) bullets just waiting to kill police.  First, armor piercing handgun ammunition has been restricted to police & military since 1994.  So it is already regulated. 

Next, the current definition of armor piercing is a bullet with a core made not from lead, but one or more of a list of materials -- such as brass and tungsten or steel -- without the bullet actually being loaded into a cartridge.  Just the bullet.  But the gun haters want to cleverly change the law to say that any ammunition that can penetrate soft body armor (like police wear) and can be fired from a handgun is prohibited.  

Here's the problem. This definition doesn't say ammunition designed to be used in a handgun. Many rifle cartridges, even with hunting loads, will penetrate soft body armor at modest distances.  Should someone, somewhere decide to make a single-shot pistol that chambers a rifle cartridge, then a hunter possessing that ammo could be prosecuted.  In fact, this is already a dispute with the BATF regarding some cartridges. The law must be clear that the ammunition is designed for a handgun.  

I'll show you what's wrong with some of the other proposals in my next column.