For my liberal friends who do not understand why anyone needs an assault rifle or why anyone with basic common sense would object to banning them, allow me to try and explain and offer some other solutions that may actually have some effect.
Fully automatic weapons were banned in 1934. An assault weapon has the same fire power as a traditional looking rifle with a wooden stock. It fires the same size round and at the same speed. The AR-15 style weapon was used in Vietnam because the older wooden stocks were less durable. Banning assault style weapons is just a ban on a gun that looks evil or military. Those of us who actually own one of these guns understand that your concern is misplaced and, sorry to put it bluntly, smacks of ignorance.
On many of these memes you say that no one wants to take away your guns and then proceed to call for the ban on a certain class of guns you clearly do not understand. You add memes that disagree with the actual second amendment or the current interpretation upheld in the Supreme Court that it means an individual right. You may be right, but these positions do not logically jive with the first statement that you do not want to take away our guns.
So when you keep posting these memes to ban assault weapons those who disagree react with their memes, and they buy more guns and ammo because they sense that there is an effort underway to take away this ‘right’.
When the Brady Bill was passed in 1993, gun sales went through the roof. People who never owned a gun bought one when they thought the window was closing. I bought a couple of high capacity pistols for that very reason. It included a ban on assault weapons. There was no discernable drop in gun violence as a result of the bill.
There has been a big increase in gun sales under Obama for similar reasons; the rhetoric of the anti-gun crowd. Sales are particularly robust immediately after a shooting because the left floods us with the same old calls, that makes gun owners fear another ban. I do not deny that the NRA leverages that fear, but you play right into their hands.
Banning the sale of these weapons would have little impact because there are so many already out there in private hands. To effectively impact the availability of them you would have to confiscate the millions of them in private hands. Picture what this would entail. The public would never stand for it. This reality is why the gun owners do not trust those who claim they do not want to take away your guns. They have been lied to before.
You can reduce the clip size, but the same dynamic applies; you would have to confiscate the millions of high capacity clips in private hands. If you have ever used one of these weapons you would realize how quickly a clip can be changed. The net effect would be minimal.
The posturing on Facebook and social media after yet another tragedy only emboldens gun rights advocates. You would be better served to understand the weaponry you want to ban and the many regulations and registrations that are already in effect for a gun buyer. With that understanding and recognition it would be much easier to actually agree on regulations that may actually work.
For example:
Currently there is a three day waiting period in which the authorities can do a background check. If the ATF or FBI does not respond in 3 days then the sale is assumed kosher and proceeds. In many thousands of cases the sale is deemed improper after the sale and the ATF is charged with confiscating the recently purchased fire arm. They rarely do.
If the authorities are too poorly staffed to do the background checks as legislated or to confiscate weapons from those that should have been stopped, then imagine how daunting the task is to confiscate banned weaponry from millions of law abiding gun owners.
Perhaps we need to increase the waiting period to allow the authorities to do a proper check.
Secondly increase the penalties for straw man purchases. Often criminal gun violators do not buy their own weapons because of the checks already in place. Hold those who buy the weapons for them accountable.
Licensing may be acceptable. I have a concealed carry permit, and it requires an extensive background check. but a license may become acceptable for any firearm purchase. This would also overcome the objection of the loophole at gun shows.
Republicans objected to banning those on a no fly list from buying guns. This has been getting its share of play on the social networks. But being put on the no fly list requires no due process and many are not even aware they have been placed on this list. They rightfully asked what other rights can be denied without due process. That constitution is a pesky document.
But this could be solved with a better run background check system to accomplish the same outcome.
Given the attention that the Orlando shooter had already earned from the FBI, it is hard to conceive that he would have been given greater scrutiny with a background check. Perhaps it is long past the time to surrender to the politically correct and start profiling aggressively.
One popular video has the President answering a question on PBS from a concerned gun owner. Obama compared the safety features we built into cars and the impact it has had on reducing traffic fatalities. The critical difference is that nobody is suggesting that we ban cars, or restricting the horsepower that we are allowed to have under the hood. Yet owning a car has little constitutional protection.
The knee jerked reaction from the left just attracts the same from the right. But with some understanding we should be able to dramatically reduce such tragedies. But I fear the hardened hearts that carry out such acts will require us to take actions that many on the left and the right will find objectionable. But at least we should take actions that will do more than deliver the short term satisfaction that we did something, no matter how ineffective.
Recommended further reading and viewing
Conservative for Gun Control by Kevin Williamson
The massacre in Orlando is horrifying, but the great majority of our murders are nothing like that. They are the ordinary work of ordinary criminals, who in most cases (more than 90 percent in New York City) already are known to police, as indeed was Omar Mateen. These killers and future killers are on the street committing their crimes because our criminal-justice system, with its vast resources, does not do its job. The police, the prosecutors, the jailers, and the parole-and-probation authorities all must answer for the fact that such a large share of our murders are committed by people already well known to law enforcement.
Charles Cooke expresses his frustration on Morning Joe for those who fail to get specific with suggestions on effective gun control measures, and we see agreement on some proposals.
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