Featured prominently in all the current AWB furor online, and in hearings, the House Democrats have done their best (which is impressive given how bad it is) to villainize “assault weapons”, in particular the AR-15. Despite credible rebuffs by their opponents, pointing out fun facts like “you’ve proposed banning the “Mini-14 tactical” receiver, but also whitelisted it with wood furniture, so is it to be banned or not?”, among the usual BS about foregrips and folding stocks and shoulder things that go up, they seem unperturbed by their ignorance, willful or genuine.
But hints at the willful aspects of their seeming inability to grasp that the function of an object is not determined by the crap you hang off of it are showing. The veneer of heroic action to stop a supposed epidemic of violence by criminalizing accessories is slipping, and in an absurdly obvious way: They went to a lot of trouble to point out how “high powered” and “deadly” the 5.56/.223 cartridge is, sharing testimonials and videos of what it can do to human tissue to generate support for their bill. There’s just one problem with that line of reasoning: the bill doesn’t ban cartridges at all.
So we’ve got coverage of what a horribly powerful and deadly thing the cartridge that’s too weak for deer hunting in many states is, and literally nothing to address it. Why do you think that might be? Here’s a few of our thoughts, lets see how they line up with your own:
-It pre-games a follow-up bill to do exactly that: ban intermediate cartridges. When they show everyone ballistic gel tests compared to the lowest mass service-pistol caliber there is in relation to a bill they know won’t pass (at least not if FPC has anything to say about it), they can point to republicans as blocking it, and being in favor of exploding children’s heads at your local mall, which will help with their base in November.
-It also pre-games a follow-up bill to regulate *actual* high-powered rifles. You can see some of this in their breathless squawking about the new SIG Spear, which while not a .338 Lapua, is a step up from the 5.56 they’re currently pissing themselves over, but the logical conclusion of “5.56 shreds bone and organs” is “.30-06 is a deadly sniper cartridge only suitable for assassination”. We’ve seen attempts at this in previous decades, and not just for .50BMG rifles either.
-They genuinely don’t care if their argument is incongruous, they are virtue signaling, and attempting to vilify the most popular semi-automatic rifles in the country, which by definition of being “in common use” are protected by the 2A. They know this, and are attempting to circumvent it with an appeal to emotion.
Whatever their rationale, it’s clearly rallying their base, who don’t know any better, or don’t care. Either way, even as this bill stands little-to-no chance of making it to the president’s desk, they’re putting in work, and so should we all, to stop them. Contact your legislators regularly, and let them know how you feel about such tactics, bills, and bullshit. The thing stopping the “90% of Americans support universal background checks/gun bans/whatever” line is all of us proving them wrong with out calls, emails, and letters. Keep it up.
