In a big chunk of the news media and in the Left Blogosphere the hot topic is gun control. I won’t even bother to link to a sample. Just check any major news outlet.
I think that banning high capacity magazines, i.e. magazines holding more than 10 cartridges, is a reasonable, commonsense measure. I also don’t think it would have any practical effect. If you can make the case that such a ban would have prevented the Orlando massacre, I’d like to hear it.
While I, personally, have no problem with banning the AR-15 or other similar weapons, I don’t think it’s practical. The AR-15 is the most popular “sporting rifle” in the United States. There are already 37 million of them out there. The horse is already out of the barn.
I also have no problem with waiting periods, bans on selling firearms to the mentally ill, bans on selling firearms to non-citizens, or bans on selling firearms to people on terrorist watch lists. I don’t believe that any of those would have prevented the Orlando massacre, either.
What practical, commonsense legal reforms would have prevented the Orlando massacre? Are there any? Or are gun control advocates just blowing off steam?
I’ve already seen the inevitable calls for repealing the Second Amendment. While we’re repealing amendments, why not repeal or amend the First Amendment? Wouldn’t that be more to the point while being narrower in scope?
Gun control advocates very rarely propose measures that would have actually prevented the mass shootings they claim they want to prevent. Either they have a poor understanding of the issue or (more likely), the measures that would actually prevent something like Sandy Hook or Orlando would be considered extreme and are therefore not politically viable.
I do disagree with you about watch lists however, because they violate due process and they don’t have any kind of transparent standard for who gets on a list and who doesn’t. If 2nd amendment rights can be abrogated with a secret, arbitrary list of names, why not the other amendments? It would be a dangerous precedent to set.
A ban on selling to non-citizens is probably unconstitutional as well, at least for permanent resident aliens who, AFAIK, have the same constitutional rights as everyone else.
The other measures you mention I don’t have any objection to except that I think they would be completely ineffective. It’s also ironic there is so much talk about the AR-15 in the media when, in this case, the murderer didn’t use one. We can ban the AR-15 but there are other designs that can take it’s place. We’d really need to ban semi-auto rifles as a category, but everyone knows that is not viable politically. Plus, like the automatic weapons ban, existing weapons would be grandfathered (that pesky constitution again).
The weapon used is apparently one of the many referred to as “AR-15 style” which sounds to me sufficiently vague that it probably wouldn’t pass legal muster.
The actual point of this post is that you don’t need to be a gun nut to think that the reforms that are being proposed are a) ineffectual and b) probably unconstitutional. Since enough of those proposing them are well enough informed to know better, it seems to me that they’re unconcerned about whether they’re effective or not have other political fish to fry.
Would agree, most of what I’ve seen from the chattering class looks like re-retreads, trial balloons that go no where (e.g Aussie style mass gun buyback/surrender), talking points (what Bloomberg etc can’t fund a study?) all of which vanish because of the next outrage du jour. None seem willing to do the hard, lengthy political work required to achieve whatever end they want.
Anyone think the gun controllers would stop after implementation of basic “common sense” reforms? They even give themselves away by stating “the first thing we should do.”
I pretty much agree with Dave’s comments. One of the things I look at when gun issues come-up is what the states are doing. If states aren’t banning large capacity magazines, then I’m not sure why Congress becomes the center of attention. Eight states ban large-capacity magazines (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York for all firearms, plus Hawaii for handguns). I can understand the frustration that these bans are difficult to enforce unless nationwide, but it evidences a lack of deep, broad commitment. And the most persuasive activists are going to be local.
My 12yo daughter has been watching the news – hard to avoid here in Florida – and she mentioned that Mateen reminded her of Kylo Ren (she’s a huge Star Wars fan). Not such a bad comparison actually.
There is nothing we can do to make the risk go to zero. We can do some things to make it a bit smaller. The large capacity magazines are an issue. Yes, there are so many out there it will be easy to find illegal ones, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to eliminate them, especially the 100 round magazines. There are also add ons that turn semi-autos to essentially full auto, legally. The bump fire stocks come to mind. Not sure why those should be legal. We could do a lot more to improve background checks, to make them uniform from state to state. Finally, I kind of like the idea of a “no buy” list. The most recent shooter had been investigated 3 times. Clearly there were hints, but they couldn’t find anything illegal. I don’t see why these kinds o people couldn’t be put on a no by list. Maybe even better, put them on a list that notifies law enforcement when they buy a weapon.
Last on the AR-15 thing, the gun nuts will have fun with this as it was really a SIG assault style rifle. In reality, it is just another AR 15 variant. Relatively light, low recoil civilian adaptation of a military weapon. There are too many of these out there to eliminate them. If they were eliminated would people stop there? Well, they did when those style weapons were illegal in the past.
Steve
If the weapons bans are a good idea, we could try banning drugs to solve the drug problem. Oh wait, …
Steve,
I’m not sure how banning 100 round magazines or bump fire mods will make the risk smaller. I haven’t done an exhaustive search, but I don’t know of any crime in the last decade that’s used either of those things. Those are good examples of appearing to do something without actually doing anything.
As for the various lists, it’s amazing to me that people seriously think it’s ok to suspend an enumerated constitutional right on the basis of a secret list that lacks any due process. It wasn’t too long ago that liberals were complaining about the watch lists as tool of Republican racial profiling that denied innocent (especially Muslim) Americans freedom of travel (The ACLU filed a lawsuit which I don’t think is yet resolved). Due process and civil liberties are less important than pyrrhic attempts at gun control.
Senator Diane Feinstein’s new legislation is even worse. She changed it from preventing people on the list from buying guns (the bill that failed last December) to include anyone who was on the list for the last 5 years. At least she made a change that would actually have had an effect on this latest shooting, unlike just about everyone else. But that’s not an endorsement, far from it. If this should pass, you could be denied a constitutional right because you were briefly on a secret list five years ago that you didn’t even know about. There’s also talk that anyone under “investigation” by the FBI should be on the list (Hillary Clinton irony alert). And Senator Chris Murray was just on CNN saying he supports the idea that the Attorney General should be able to put anyone on the list based on mere suspicion. I wonder if the AG has a list of NRA members ready to be added? But what am I saying, I’m sure a secret list run by political appointees would never be used for partisan purposes.
If we’re going to go down this road, why stop with gun rights? One idea I saw on twitter earlier: “I’m sorry ma’am, you can’t have an abortion, you are on a secret government watch list.” It’s a fun thought experiment to imagine all the wonderful thing we could prevent all those baddies on the lists from doing (whoever they might be).
Anyone remember when Sen. Ted Kennedy couldn’t get on a plane because he was on the no fly list? It only took his staff three weeks to get his name removed! I’m sure everything is fixed now.
Oy, and here’s another Senator who thinks due process is dispensable.
@Andy, due process will be required, its just a question of whether the legislation provides for it or the courts. Those advocating the law will have the incentive to create a due process right in the legislation that passes judicial muster. Otherwise I don’t think the law will pass, but also because the process Congress makes can probably be more minimal or convenient than what courts would require.
In Illinois, a therapist has a duty to inform law enforcement if he/she knows a client has a gun and is a threat to harm himself or others. Law enforcement may then seize the guns, but the owner has the right to challenge the action in court within a certain amount of time.
I don’t know that this has been evaluated by the courts, but it written with due process in mind and the kind of balancing of interests (including institutional interests) that I would expect:
First, the trigger is a specific, expressed intent to commit harm, not just any mental health diagnosis. Second, the fact of gun ownership is volunteered, so the therapist doesn’t arguably become an agent of the state. Third, law enforcement is not required to take any action, so their enforcement discretion is retained. Fourth, because of the exigency of the circumstances, a court would find a post-deprivation hearing reasonable. Fifth and subtly, this process shifts the burden onto the gun owner to petition the court.
I think these are the kind of processes that will need to be considered, though it sounds like lawmakers want to use the foreign nature of the threat as grounds to minimize traditional due process standards, which raises the question is the FBI terror watchlist only going to be for those suspected of being agents of foreign powers?