Senator Dianne Feinstein waited no time to drag her favorite topic back out into the spotlight.
Gun control.
Last year we saw tens of thousands of students take to the streets to demand action to stop mass shootings and stem the epidemic of gun violence that plagues our communities. This generation has grown up with active-shooter drills, hiding under their desks. #EnoughIsEnough
— Senator Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) January 9, 2019
This thread goes on for a while with the usual talking points until it gets to this.
And it bans magazines and other ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which allow shooters to quickly fire many rounds without needing to reload. Information on all of the bill’s provisions can be found here: https://t.co/2sMmdPeSpJ
— Senator Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) January 9, 2019
Senators Introduce Assault Weapons Ban
Washington—Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) today led a group of senators in introducing the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019, an updated bill to ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
In addition to Feinstein, Murphy and Blumenthal, cosponsors of the bill include Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).
Oh look, it’s every fucking Democrat in the Senate who wants to run for President in 2020. How was this not totally predictable.
“Last year we saw tens of thousands of students nationwide take to the streets to demand action to stop mass shootings and stem the epidemic of gun violence that plagues our communities. Our youngest generation has grown up with active-shooter drills, hiding under their desks—and now they’re saying enough is enough,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein. “Americans across the nation are asking Congress to reinstate the federal ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. If we’re going to put a stop to mass shootings and protect our children, we need to get these weapons of war off our streets.”
I think if there is a common theme in these mass shootings, it’s not an issue of assault weapons, of which there are some 20+ million in US civilian hands. The problem seems to be Democrat controlled counties and cities, and their sheriff and police departments being unable to nip these guys in the bud.
“Military-style assault rifles are the weapons of choice for mass murderers. There’s just no reason why these guns, which were designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible, are sold to the public,” said Senator Chris Murphy. “This past year, we’ve seen Americans rise up and demand Congress change our gun laws. Banning assault weapons would save lives, and I’m proud to join Senator Feinstein in introducing this bill.”
*Yawn* Boring…
“Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are deadly and dangerous weapons of war that belong on battlefields—not our streets. They have no purpose for self-defense or hunting, and no business being in our schools, churches and malls,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal. “By passing this legislation, Congress can honor the memory of the beautiful lives cut short by military-style assault weapons in Newtown, Parkland, Las Vegas, San Bernardino and far too many other American cities. This is the year for my colleagues to turn our rhetoric into reality and finally end America’s gun violence epidemic.”
So there are going to do the same thing that has never worked, isn’t going to reduce crime at all, but will reduce the rights of millions of law abiding people who will never hurt anybody anyway because it’s not about crime, it’s about these people hating guns.
Key provisions:
- Bans the sale, manufacture, transfer and importation of 205 military-style assault weapons by name. Owners may keep existing weapons.
- Bans any assault weapon that accepts a detachable ammunition magazine and has one or more military characteristics including a pistol grip, a forward grip, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel or a folding or telescoping stock. Owners may keep existing weapons.
- Bans magazines and other ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which allow shooters to quickly fire many rounds without needing to reload. Owners may keep existing magazines.
Exemptions to bill:
- The bill exempts by name more than 2,200 guns for hunting, household defense or recreational purposes.
- The bill includes a grandfather clause that exempts all weapons lawfully possessed at the date of enactment.
Other provisions:
- Requires a background check on any future sale, trade or gifting of an assault weapon covered by the bill.
- Requires that grandfathered assault weapons are stored using a secure gun storage or safety device like a trigger lock.
- Prohibits the transfer of high-capacity ammunition magazines.
- Bans bump-fire stocks and other devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at fully automatic rates.
So it’s the 1995 AWB with bump stocks and universal background checks.
Useless law plus useless ban plus useless law is useless. Except for restricting the rights of law abiding gun owners, that is.
Updates to Assault Weapons Ban of 2017:
- Bans stocks that are “otherwise foldable or adjustable in a manner that operates to reduce the length, size, or any other dimension, or otherwise enhances the concealability of a firearm.”
Those six position carbine stocks have become so popular because dad, mom, and the kids can all fit the gun to themselves with the push of a button. I guess those have to go. Also, is concealing an AR really that big of a problem?
- Bans assault pistols that weigh 50 or more ounces when unloaded, a policy included in the original 1994 ban.
And here we go after AR pistols.
- Bans assault pistol stabilizing braces that transform assault pistols into assault rifles by allowing the shooter to shoulder the weapon and fire more accurately.
I knew that was coming. I’m not saying I have one, but I will say I know a lot of people who are really going to hate this.
- Bans Thordsen-type grips and stocks that are designed to evade a ban on assault weapons.
I had to look that one up. They are getting smarter to our end runs around their arbitrary bans in their anti-gun states. This kills the whole market for slightly neutered assault weapons that grew from the 1995 ban. It seems like no more removing a feature or two to go from pre-ban to post-ban configurations will be allowed to fly. That’s a real problem.
What worries me here is that I don’t see grandfathering mentioned in any of these updates. Your AR might be grandfathered but your AR pistol and brace, may not be. Neither will your thumb hole stock and pinned muzzle break instead of flash hider.
Also, I do not see a sunset provision anywhere in this bill. Once it’s in place, it’s there for good unless we get SCOTUS to hear a challenge and then overturn it. Yes, it could be repealed, but how often does a federal law get repealed? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Congress will pass this easily. The Democrats have gone too far left and gun control is no longer the third rail of American politics. Yes, that’s our fault, we got complacent.
I have hope the GOP controlled senate will hold out, but I can’t guarantee it. Once upon a time I respected Romney, now I worry that he’d go Left on an AWB.
Trump is a toss-up. I wish I didn’t have to say that, but after his call for the ATF to ban bump stocks, I really don’t know what he’ll do.
The margin of safety that we had for this not getting passed is a lot narrower than I’d like it to be, if it is there at all.
We have to start fighting again, and hard.
I’m with Miguel. We need the NRA more than ever now. This is a time where we have to unite against this common enemy, because if we don’t hang together, we’re all going to go to jail for our braced AR pistols and carbine stocks separately.
She’s as formulaic as a Hollywood blockbuster.
Yup. She keeps coming back to this, but it never goes anywhere. I hope that it continues to go nowhere.
Makes me want to send her a photo of a pile of ARs I’ve made in my garage, but that’d give her ideas.
scrappycrow: That’s too much credit, by far. At least Hollywood occasionally manages a twist ending.
DiFi’s as formulaic as an episode of Dora the Explorer. With about the same level of reasoning skills and basis in reality.
They got their bump stock ban thanks to the NRA cave in on the issue. I’m still a member of the NRA but GOA are the true 2A stalwarts now, I urge everyone to join them as well.
And the NRA caving on the bump-stock issue emboldened them. Like “pacifying” a pack of circling hyenas by throwing them a scrap of meat.
Seriously, who couldn’t see this coming?
But hey, now the NRA has something concrete to cite in their fundraising mailers. So there’s that.
Really? So what was the caving issue the other two times?
soon we will blame sunrises, cavities, hair loss and global warming on the NRA “caving” on bump stocks.
OT. Could this be the reason that Governor DeSantis is not canning Sheriff Israel?
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/9/judge-mark-walker-rules-rick-scott-violated-brenda/
“Still, Walker said he does not have the authority to reinstate Snipes, writing that the court is “not determining what the ultimate outcome will or should be.”
All flash in the pan…
No, just a flaming lib judge.
The following is an essay pointing out that national gun-rights groups’ opposition, to various assault weapons bans, mirrors the Heller opinion’s ‘self-defense’ constitutional justification while ignoring an equally pertinent historical constitutional argument. I conclude that these groups should champion ‘state-defense’ as a concurring Constitutional justification for private ownership of so-called military-style weapons. Doing so would cut the legs off of a popular anti-gun argument in favor of semiautomatic firearms (and magazine), namely that these arms are more suited to the battlefield than self-defense.
* * * * *
The Second Amendment clearly stands for the proposition that Congress is prohibited from disarming the state militias. Both sides of the scholarly legal debate over the scope of the Second Amendment agree on at least this fundamental point (the Heller Decision went beyond that to include arms possession for individual self-defense as well). It is the one and only truth about the Second Amendment that is not controversial. One would think that a Federal assault-weapons ban would serve to do just that (i.e. effectively disarm the civilian militia of the various states). The antis obviously don’t care and hope that nobody notices. I argue that we should care and make an all-out effort to ensure that everybody notices.
A compelling legal obstacle to assault weapons bans is being quietly ignored, one which would be rather formidable should a new ban ever be passed at the federal level. Unfortunately, it seems as if neither the NRA nor the SAF has managed to grasp this concept. All of their assault weapons ban litigation efforts have been concerned with portraying semiautomatic firearms as useful tools for individual self-defense protection while distancing the same from any possible military utility. Gun-rights groups should travel both roads and simultaneously embrace Second Amendment protection of semiautomatic firearms for both individual self-defense as well as private possession for the (unorganized, not select) citizen militia.
Those opposed to civilian ownership of semiautomatic firearms with detachable magazines, invariably (and perhaps helpfully) define such arms in military terms (i.e. “suitable for the battlefield”). This creates a problem for them (which our side’s silence allows them to ignore) in that many state constitutional provisions implicitly protect the type of arms required for actual combat. Take Michigan for example. See Article I, Section 6, of the Michigan Constitution below:
CONSTITUTION OF MICHIGAN OF 1963
§ 6 Bearing of arms. Sec. 6.
Every person has a right to keep and bear arms for the defense of himself and the state.
History: Const. 1963, Art. I, § 6, Eff. Jan. 1, 1964
The relevant part, potentially fatal to an ill-conceived assault weapons ban, is: “Every person has a right to keep and bear arms for the defense of . . . the state.” Defending the state is an enumerated constitutional right! Note that it is ‘every person’ that enjoys this right and is not limited to members of a select militia.
States are not robbed, raped or kidnapped. States face invasions and insurrections. The Michigan Constitution explicitly protects private possession of arms suitable for defending the state against such threats. Michigan’s Constitution was adopted in modern-times (1963) when semiautomatic rifles and pistols with detachable high-capacity magazines were readily available to all civilians. Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming also have similar constitutional provisions explicitly protecting the right of their people to keep arms for defense of the state.
If we really want to catch the antis off-guard, not to mention educate the public about state constitutional roles in preserving the ability of citizens to protect state liberties, then it may serve our side well to expand the debate well beyond semantics over the cosmetic or functional features of firearms and into one of actual constitutional substance.
Permission to redistribute this essay granted.
Love the lies.
“Our youngest generation has grown up with active-shooter drills, hiding under their desks—and now they’re saying enough is enough.” — Sen. Dianne Feinstein
My generation grew up with earthquake drills, hiding under our desks. And fire drills, walking outside to spend 15-20 minutes in 35-degree driving rain after leaving EVERYTHING at our desks (“Don’t take the time to grab your coat; it’s an emergency!”). All that, despite not having a serious earthquake in several years, and NEVER having a school fire anywhere in the district in living memory. We said enough is enough, but they ignored us.
Why are some student concerns more valid than others?
“If we’re going to put a stop to mass shootings and protect our children, we need to get these weapons of war off our streets.” — Sen. Dianne Feinstein
“Weapons of war”, huh? Cite one military force that fields a semi-automatic variant of a full-automatic rifle as standard issue for combat troops.
I’ll wait.
“Military-style assault rifles are the weapons of choice for mass murderers.” — Sen. Chris Murphy
Ummm…. No. Most “mass-shooters” choose pistols, with a healthy mix of 10-round and standard-capacity magazines. Some even choose (*gasp*) pump-action shotguns. In China, it’s knives and other stabby-cutty implements.
Guess what? It’s not the weapon that’s the problem; it’s the murderer. I’m not a murderer, but you want to treat me like I am, or could be at any moment. Pardon me for taking offense to that.
“Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are deadly and dangerous weapons of war that belong on battlefields—not our streets. They have no purpose for self-defense or hunting, and no business being in our schools, churches and malls. — Sen. Richard Blumenthal
“Weapons of war”, again? Please try again to cite one standing military that fields a semi-auto variant as standard issue. Maybe you’ll have better luck than your colleague.
RE: Self-defense or hunting: Never hunted hogs have you? Never been the victim of a home invasion with several perpetrators, either?
I suppose you also weren’t at the church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, amirite? (Don’t think I didn’t notice you omitting that event as a reason to ban semi-auto rifles!)
And if they have no business being on our streets, you will naturally ban law enforcement agencies from having them, too, right? Since “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines” have no self-defense applications, and are only good for killing a lot of people very quickly, the police shouldn’t have them unless you expect the police to engage in the routine business of killing a lot of people very quickly, right?
Right!?
Yeah. Thought so.
In other news: https://kelo.com/news/articles/2019/jan/10/sen-thune-joins-bill-on-concealed-carry-reciprocity/
That is great news!
I’m not saying ‘Don’t worry! Be Happy!’, but unless the whole Senate decided to go off the reservation and vote gun-grabbing en masse it would take 13 anti-gun Republican Senators voting with all the demoncraps to ‘stop debate’ even if this bill makes it past a Committee vote and McTurtle decides to schedule a floor vote on it.
Romney may be a anti-Trump weasel, but he’s only one (1) Senator and I bet people back in Utah would put some heavy pressure on him to stay on the pro-gun side of things.
I’m not so sure about this. The people of Utah sent him to DC, knowing that he is the one who signed AWB and obozo care (before socialized medicine became obozocare) in the State of Masshole. He is not a conservative. He is a leftist fascist. The nitt is the poster boy of the RINO class. Look for them to trade this gun control for something else, or “stop” this but “give” universal back ground checks (nothing more that registration- can’t take’em if you don’t know where they are). The final ban will come when the dems steal all elections.
I’m a bit confused.
“Congress will pass this easily. ”
Next paragraph, “I have hope the GOP controlled senate will hold out…”
Last I heard, the Senate is one of the two chambers of Congress. Did you mean “the House will pass this…”?
We know that Democrats don’t like the 2nd Amendment. But what about Republicans? Most give lip service to it. A couple do take it seriously. How many do not? All too many Republicans have voted against the human right to be armed, as FL residents know all too well.
[…] Details here. This one has a single feature test, meaning it will ban any AR-15 type rifle, or anything else with that accepts a magazine and has a pistol grip. And with Maxine Waters running the Commerce Committee, look for financial targeting to get a lot worse. […]