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assault weapon bans, assault weapons, gun buy backs, Leah Libresco, magazine limitation, NRA, self-defense, suppressor bans, The Second Amendment, The Washington Post, US v Haynes
Upon occasion, one stumbles on something rare and precious, something almost unthinkable and seldom seen. In this case, an honest leftist writing about the Second Amendment. May I introduce, gentle readers, Leah Libresco, writing at, of all places, The Washington Post, that former newspaper that thinks one of the most vicious and barbaric terrorists that ever lived “an austere religious scholar.” She is, in this field, refreshing:
Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.
Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns.
See what I mean? She’s not only willing to examine the issue honestly, but is equally willing to abandon the D/S/C narrative when it departs—as it virtually always does—from reality. Researching gun control in other countries, she realized they really can’t be productively compared with America, something the evil NRA and others have been saying for decades.
When I looked at the other oft-praised policies, I found out that no gunowner walks into the store to buy an ‘assault weapon.’ It’s an invented classification that includes any semi-automatic that has two or more features, such as a bayonet mount, a rocket-propelled grenade-launcher mount, a folding stock or a pistol grip. But guns are modular, and any hobbyist can easily add these features at home, just as if they were snapping together Legos.
Libresco demonstrates less of a lack of knowledge about guns than most, but while some assault rifles can mount a grenade launcher, none are “rocket-propelled,” and for all practical intents and purposes, such things are illegal for civilian use. Hearing her admit “assault weapon” is a fake term meant to deceive is also refreshing. She’s also refreshingly honest here:
As for silencers — they deserve that name only in movies, where they reduce gunfire to a soft puick puick. In real life, silencers limit hearing damage for shooters but don’t make gunfire dangerously quiet. An AR-15 with a silencer is about as loud as a jackhammer. Magazine limits were a little more promising, but a practiced shooter could still change magazines so fast as to make the limit meaningless.
Libresco is quite accurate. Suppressors for rifle caliber firearms succeed primarily in making the report hard to localize at a distance. MY 2017 primer on suppressors may be found here. Libresco notes that 2/3 of all gun deaths are suicides, the next largest category was homicides by young men. She notes these are mostly gang-related, but neglects to mention most are committed by young Black men. Again, she honestly notes none of the “gun safety” measures being proposed would have any effect on either category. Here’s that surprising honesty again:
By the time we published our project, I didn’t believe in many of the interventions I’d heard politicians tout. I was still anti-gun, at least from the point of view of most gun owners, and I don’t want a gun in my home, as I think the risk outweighs the benefits. But I can’t endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them. Policies that often seem as if they were drafted by people who have encountered guns only as a figure in a briefing book or an image on the news.
Libresco concludes by noting that only specifically targeted, not broadly aggressive, measures will have any hope of accomplishing anything. Most have little to do with guns, such as mental health interventions for suicide and domestic violence.
D/S/Cs often preach compromise, but their “compromise” always requires that others accept each and every one of their uninformed and/or purposely deceptive premises before a word is spoken, and surrender, without complaint, fundamental, unalienable rights. They know their proposals will have no effect on violence and will produce no benefits for public safety, but unlike Libresco, they won’t admit it. They won’t because public safety is not their goal. Disarming the law-abiding is. History is clear on what happens when any political movement disarms the law-abiding.
How does one compromise the tools necessary to exercise the right to self-defense? How may one compromise the means necessary to resist tyranny? D/S/Cs snort derisively and accuse anyone bringing up the Founder’s primary reason for the Second Amendment—deterring, and when necessary, overthrowing a tyrannical government—an alarmist traitor, but it is those that would neuter or eliminate any part of the Bill of Rights that betray the foundations of our representative republic.
Normal Americans have no problem with any attempt to improve public safety as long as it is narrowly written, and can actually do what its backers claim. Libresco accurately explains the reality of suppressors. They don’t work as the movies represent, but merely reduce the report of gunfire to levels that don’t damage hearing. A suppressed gunshot still sounds like a gunshot. They are virtually never used in crimes. If public health and safety were the goal, D/S/Cs would mandate their sale, but of course, they reflexively oppose and demonize anything that would actually be beneficial.
The same is true of magazine capacity limitations. Practiced shooters can change magazines in as little as a single second. Even novices can easily change magazines within six seconds (it takes about three seconds to read this sentence). What this means is magazine capacity is a non-factor in mass shootings. No magazine capacity ban would have any effect on the outcome of a mass shooting.
We have a conclusive model of the public safety benefit of an “assault weapon” ban. D/S/Cs had one for ten years—1994-2004–under Bill Clinton. When the ban, which also limited magazine capacity to ten rounds, sunset even congressional Democrats didn’t try to resurrect it. The evidence that it did absolutely nothing useful was so obvious they couldn’t raise an objection, and they paid a heavy political price for the ban.
As I’ve often noted, D/S/Cs fervently believe none of their policies can possibly be wrong, or at the very least, the more honest among them must maintain that pretense. If one of their policies appears to have failed, it must be because not enough time was allowed for its wonders to fully manifest, not enough money was spent, it wasn’t forced on normal American with sufficient fervor, or normal Americans were allowed to exist to oppose it.
These were the arguments used to explain the failure of the Clinton ban. Only some of the so-called “assault weapons” were banned, and the government didn’t seize every “AW” in the hands of the public, so of course the ban didn’t work! And it was only in effect for a decade. This time, D/S/Cs do not plan to make the mistakes of the past. They plan to register and seize, supposedly by buying back what they never owned in the first place–every AW. In the process, they’ll be learning the locations of millions of gun owners, and if they have an AW, they must have more guns…
It’s also interesting to know that under the US v Haynes decision (1968), felons cannot be required to register firearms, nor can they be prosecuted for failing to register them. It would be a violation of their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. D/S/Cs would disarm the law-abiding while doing nothing to in any way hinder criminals, who don’t obey the law in any case. That’s what makes them criminals, and what renders a sham any gun control scheme as a means of public safety.
Unlike most D/S/Cs, Libresco is someone with who normal American might be able to talk. She is not, however, in a position of power, nor would D/S/Cs ever allow anyone like her to participate in any negotiation. She recognizes reality, which for people who make their own and try to force everyone to live in it, is like sunlight to a vampire. One suspects, sadly, for telling the truth, she’s not terribly popular in her accustomed social circles these days. She’s welcome in mine, and I’m sure, those of normal Americans.
So.. what you are saying with posting the emotionally solicitous Nazi atrocity pic there… is that if we lose our guns the government will kill us like the Nazis did. Completely ignoring the nearly impossible, if not improbable concept that all weapons could be eliminated in this country to begin with…. seeing as how a lot of events would have to transpire before that would even occur. Don’t compare to the rise of Nazi power somehow on a “sleeping” population… far different times, events, and governments.
You trying to use fear to assert your cause. Very Trumpian of you, Mike.
Dear Doug:
You’re extending the analogy much too far, and much further than I intended it. The point is simple: history teaches clearly that when government disarms people, they don’t do it for kindly and benign reasons, and very often, it leads to horrific abuses of human rights. The fear in this case is on the Left. They fear, and reasonably so, that normal Americans will insist on their constitutional rights, among them, the right to self-defense. Of course, any rational person should fear any government that would seek to disarm them.
Doesn’t seem like I took anything way out of context, Mike. The fear you are suggesting is that if our guard is down regarding gun ownership then some government will over-power our ability to presumably fight back. That then suggests the argument is that we need our guns “just in case” a government “we” don’t like takes over… ostensibly because we don’t have guns to fight back. On both sides of the argument.. fear is the motivator. The Left fears getting shot at the mall and the Right fears some renegade government wanting to take their guns away.
I’m not anti-Second in the least. What I am suggesting is that both sides of this are motivated by fear… not solutions. Yeah.. ok… semantics about weapons and their operations are fine, but the only one’s “listening” to that are applauding gun owners who reflect your opinion. This is also my biggest gripe with the NRA.. so busy trying to sow the fear of loosing guns rather than spearheading an effort to quell those “evil people” you mention in your last line.
I grew up in Texas in the 60’s. There were guns everywhere and no one was shooting up the neighborhoods. My neighbor specialized in M1 carbines and M2 conversion kits. This was legal for most of the 60’s. When I entered high school, if you drove your dad’s pickup to school, there was very likely at least a 30.06 hunting rifle in the rack behind the seat. No one thought anything of it. And, heaven forbid, all the boys carried pocket knifes! We even had cats and dogs living together in the same family!
Fact is, I’ve never met an evil gun. Only evil people.
What you recall makes me recall the University Tower sniper, Whitman, in 1966. As soon as he opened up and people started falling, Texans in their pickups with gun racks stopped and returned fire without waiting for the cops. Different times… different state laws than most (I grew up in Illinois and even back then controls were far stiffer), a national population some 30-40 million less than now… and guns are way too pricey to just hang from window gun racks anymore, much less nowadays with a concerned public sensitive to persons with weapons displayed.
Yep.. different world.
I have never understood why some people insist on equating prudence with fear.
Because the absence of prudence can have unwanted ramifications.
Dear til:
It’s a way to avoid accepting human nature and the unmistakable lessons of history.
“On both sides of the argument.. fear is the motivator. The Left fears getting shot at the mall and the Right fears some renegade government wanting to take their guns away.”
I might agree that in this case, fear is a motivator. But not in the way you’ve framed it. Rather I think that the Left fears losing the ability to make citizens dependent on the government, and the ability to dictate what I should believe, think, do, drive, etc. The Right fears losing the ability to be independent from the government in thought, deed, job, religion, defense, etc.
The Constitution should limit the government’s ability to restrict or curtail any citizens’ freedom and liberty. However, if that same government decides that the voices of its’ citizens no longer need to be heard, that the votes cast no longer need to be recognized, or that protests need not be allowed, what recourse do those same citizens have?
The Second Amendment.
Well, Pinky… you said…
“Rather I think that the Left fears losing the ability to make citizens dependent on the government, and the ability to dictate what I should believe, think, do, drive, etc. The Right fears losing the ability to be independent from the government in thought, deed, job, religion, defense, etc.”
I see no collective, unified, or political platform aspirations of the Left as thinking anything even remotely to what you perceive they are thinking. Sounds like you prefer the “they” being the usual unsubstantiated conspiratorial deep state. Will some Liberals suggest programs that might be described what you are implying? Of course.. it’s election time. Voters can decide that. What’s the fear?
Regarding the Right.. I’m a registered Republican and I in no way have any such “fear” you describe, but that’s likely because I am more “Reagan” and not one bit the self-destructive “Trumpian” personification of being “Republican”… of which I sincerely DO fear.
As far as this continued support of the Second solely because of this facade of insurrectionist theory.. we’ve discussed this before.
Doug, there’s an easy way to effectively ban guns without confiscating them. Ban the sale, manufacturing of, or the import of munitions, making it a felony punishable by serious jail time or confiscation. Is that something you would support?
BTW, I don’t.
Rather like closing the barn door after the horses have been stolen… doncha think? As we all know, guns aren’t a consumable much less intentionally disposable… that’s way we have antiques in collections. You buy a gun, it will last forever. Besides, we have a lot of gunsmiths in this country. Ammo.. people can make on their own. Oh.. and serious jail time never has been that great a deterrence for anything in this country. So.. no that’s not an easy way for anything. And, no, I am not for that at all. Confiscation of weapons and everything you need to fire same.. that ship has sailed long ago. Another reason people are just using this argument to impose fear of loosing the Second.
Look, Mr. Tarkas.. to expand a bit… both sides of this great divide we are experiencing has a lot to do with both sides using very broad accusations that are extraordinarily inaccurate because they spread a fear. Example.. the Right’s proclamation that “the Left wants to toss out the Second Amendment”… with the idea that will create fear and get people to dislike the Left. Well.. common sense suggests that all those 300+ million guns in this country are not all owned by Conservatives/Republicans. You know any stats in that? I don’t and I am sure the NRA doesn’t either. Even if there were a sitting Democratic president and a totally Democratic Congress… “tossing out the Second” just wouldn’t and couldn’t happen. It surely didn’t under Obama when the Dems had it all.
It’s like when the Left cries out that” the GOP are nothing but racists”. Again.. fear rhetoric. And the crazy thing is… people continually repeat that garbage as if it’s some great statistical evidence. No.. not all GOP’ers are racists. Duh.
The Second Amendment is going nowhere. The rest is politics.
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Reblogged this on It's Karl.
Dear karllembke:
Thanks for the reblog. This was a bit of an older article, but still relevant.