There are few things as senseless as blaming a sword for the hand that wields it. But that is the premise behind every gun control law ever written, and from the 1934 National Firearms Act until today, the federal government keeps swinging and missing on this issue.
Now, following the Supreme Court’s dumping on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) bump-stock rule, Joe Biden is making a ban on “assault weapons” part of his 2024 campaign:
President Biden’s reelection campaign dropped a new ad Saturday highlighting his administration’s work on gun violence prevention, just a day after the Supreme Court invalidated the Trump-era prohibition on bump stocks.
In the 30-second ad, shared with The Hill, Biden blames former President Trump for the conservative-leaning court’s decision on Friday.
The Biden administration-has defended the regulation, which banned the device that converts semi-automatic weapons to ones capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute, in front of the high court after the Trump administration first implemented it in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.
The regulation in question was not only improper and illegal, as the Supreme Court has decided, but also stupid. But then, gun control and “assault weapons” laws are flawed at their core, and, yes, stupid.
Previously on RedState: Supreme Court Delivers Major Gun Rights Victory With Bump Stock Decision
Consider the much-ballyhooed federal 1994 “assault weapons” ban. This law did not outlaw semi-automatic rifles that accepted detachable magazines. It did ban future production of magazines holding more than 10 rounds, but that resulted in a ridiculously easy workaround wherein the standard body of, say, a 30-round magazine had a semi-circular cut in the metal that protruded into the magazine, prevented the follower from being pushed down past the 10-round mark. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to fix that and restore full capacity. Also, the law did not touch the millions of magazines already in existence; it was purely symbolic, a big Congressional virtue signal.
But it gets worse. The law did not ban the weapons, as noted above, but it did ban certain features, among them flash hiders – which hide the muzzle flash, not from observers, but from the shooter; they do not make the firing signature less visible from the front. But the real howler was the banning of bayonet lugs.
Yes, that’s right: Bayonet lugs. Presumably, this was the result of all of those notorious, early ’90s gang violence incidents in which Crips and Bloods would line up, fix bayonets, and charge one another.
The 1994 act was a stupid law, stupidly drafted and stupidly passed. Fortunately, it had an expiration date, which hasn’t stopped the issue from coming back around every time anything gun-related happens.
See Related: The Centennial State’s Leftward Drift Continues: Colorado House Passes ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban
Study Confirms 10+ Firearm Magazine Capacity Is ‘Standard’
Biden, in his ad, claims:
“When Trump was president— children gunned down in classrooms, innocent people killed in church and massacred at a concert. Still, Trump did nothing,” Biden said in the ad, arguing that the former president has often sided with the National Rifle Association.
It’s important to note that the crimes mentioned fall under local jurisdictions. Murder and felonious assault are not federal crimes unless perps commit crimes in multiple states. The president has no role in trying and punishing these perps. But we all know that’s not what old Joe, or whoever wrote this material for him, is talking about. It’s something else – not the hand, but the sword.
“If you care about the gun violence crisis in this country, there is only one candidate in this race with a proven record of successfully taking on the gun lobby and only one candidate who will ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Biden communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement. “That’s President Biden.”
He has done none of these things, of course. The original bump-stock ban was initiated under the Trump administration.
While we’re on the topic of bump stocks: This flapdoodle may be even sillier than the bayonet lug horse squeeze. A bump stock does not change the function of a firearm, which still fires one round for each action of the trigger. It does utilize a spring that speeds up the actuation of the trigger – an action that can be duplicated with a rubber band or even a belt loop. In my innocent youth, those of us with semi-auto .22 rifles achieved an impressive rate of fire with rubber bands in this fashion.
Right now, the Biden administration, seeing the president’s ongoing and increasingly obvious decline, not to mention his cratering poll numbers, is just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. It’s not likely to save the president’s reelection bid, assuming he makes it that far.
