This article is an extension of one submitted by contributing editor BM, additional thanks to RT and HP.
US Senator Dianne Feinstein’s proposed gun bill is a very serious attack on the Second Amendment, a basic right of free people enshrined in our Constitution. It is a federal gun ban proposal that is not limited in its effect to so called assault weapons. She is going after handguns too. According to the language of the proposal you get to keep the guns you already own, but there are hoops you have to jump through to do so, and you may be the last one to legally own them.
This bill must be stopped legislatively. We can’t count on the courts as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has by example made it clear that he does not feel it is his job to save us from legislation that is explicitly in violation of the constitution. He is prone to simply interpret legislation loosely, essentially rewriting it in order to sustain it, language and legislative history be damned. His “Obamacare” decision is a case in point.
Feinstein’s proposal purports to grant some gun rights and take away others. The hubris is always amazing from liberals. Specifics to her proposal include the following:
Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
- 120 specifically-named firearms
- Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
- Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds
- Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
- Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test
- Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test
- Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans
- Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.
- Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
- Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment
Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes and - Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons
- Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
- Background check of owner and any transferee;
- Type and serial number of the firearm;
- Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
- Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
- Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration
The National Rifle Association provides a point by point analysis of the Feinstein proposal. It is available here and we encourage readers to bookmark it and use it as an authoritative reference. Shane VanderHart provides an insightful essay titled Politicizing Sandy Hook in the pages of the Iowa Republican Party website. It is one of many articles available in the blogosphere that instinctive conservatives can benefit from.
Can Feinstein’s proposal be stopped – yes – if we insist Republican legislators and our leadership stand by the Constitution, our state platform (mouse down to Section 17) and our national platform.
Sadly, here is the danger that ensues from this and any unprincipled bandwagon “must deal with” legislation. All of the proposed restrictions are bad. But predictably Feinstein put some provisions in as unlikely and therefore throwaways, thus setting up a ruse for squishy legislators to “achieve” a “compromise” that is in reality 1) a significant erosion of rights; 2) a gun grabbing legislative basis to build on, and 3) the creation of a vehicle for bureaucratic subterfuge of Second Amendment rights.
Unprincipled Republicans will cave early “in the spirit of compromise” and tell their constituents “I saved you from worse.” It is all bull. Given Republican control of the House any such legislation should never see the light of day or should be replaced with appropriate push-back legislation. A Senate still subject to Republican filibuster, may well provide political options.
Those Republicans who pretend a political necessity “to lend support” to any of the provisions risk a legislative domino effect and will seriously damage the Republican brand with a key constituency that could well be motivated to contribute to efforts calling for abandonment of the Republican Party and formation of a third party. These sizable elements are not in a mood for Republican legislators and their leadership to play games. Primaries will be the least of the problems for establishment types not holding themselves or the troops in line.
In closing we refer readers to a couple more important, indeed profound articles that have appeared in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.
Dave Greenfield writing December 15th in the excellent Sultan Knish site he is responsible for has cogent observations regarding guns, moral agency and the chivalry mindset of some gun controllers. The entire article is highly recommended and available here. The analysis he sets forth when applied to other issues goes a long way toward explaining the mind set of big government liberals, socialists and managed society types in general. A very insightful article. Thanks to RT for bringing it to our attention.
It’s about the belief that the problem isn’t evil, but agency, that if we make sure that everyone who has guns is following orders, then control will be asserted and the problem will stop. Or if it doesn’t stop, then at least there will be someone higher up in the chain of command to blame. Either way authority is sanctified, control or the illusion of it, maintained. . . .
The clamor for gun control is the cry of sheltered utopians believing that evil is a substance as finite as guns, and that getting rid of one will also get rid of the other. But evil isn’t finite and guns are as finite as drugs or moonshine whiskey, which is to say that they are as finite as the human interest in having them is. And unlike whiskey or heroin, the only way to stop a man with a gun is with a gun.
People do kill people and the only way to stop people from killing people is by killing them first. To a utopian this is a moral paradox that invalidates everything, but to everyone else, it’s just life in a world where evil is a reality, not just a word. . . .
It isn’t really guns that the gun controllers are afraid of, it’s a country where individual agency is still superior to organized control, where things are unpredictable because the trains don’t run on time and orders don’t mean anything . . .
In addition, a friend of this site, Hugh Pries, a law graduate and man of words, referred us to what should be the definitive linguistic exegesis of the Second Amendment.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
We encourage the internalization of this article as so much mischief has resulted from the corruption or basic misunderstanding of English sentence structure. The result has been the ability to confuse low information voters and provide people who think they are smarter than they are, an often unexamined talking point about militias that is not only ignorant of the history of the terms but honest application of grammer conventions. The Supreme Court’s Heller decision should have settled the matter but alas the words continue to be fundamentally distorted. R Mall
