Proving once again they’re absolutely clueless on firearms, nearly 200 House Democrats have indicated their support for legislation banning all semi-automatic firearms nationwide.
They aren’t just talking about the dreaded AR-15 here. Every new Glock, outlawed. My dad’s old .22 Browning target pistol, which my 13-year-old insists I leave to him in my will, would be among the last of its kind. And — try not to think about this too hard, or you’ll cry — the Colt 1911 .45, perhaps the American sidearm, would be no more.
We’ll get revolvers and bolt-action rifles and that’s about it.
The Assault Weapons Ban of 2019, authored by Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline, would also ban “high capacity” magazines. Not that we’d have any new semi-automatic firearms to feed them into, anyway. Now that Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), brother of Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro, and Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa) are on board, the bill is just 20 votes away from passage through Nancy Pelosi’s House.
Showing she has absolutely no clue what she’s talking about, Florida Democrat Frederica Wilson told The Hill on Wednesday, “Assault weapons were designed for one purpose: to kill people in war. Ordinary citizens should not own or have access to assault weapons.” A .22 target pistol is now an “assault weapon.” Good to know, Congresscritter!
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) says he’s looking at a huge list of possible new restrictions, including the above-mentioned bans on semi-automatics and “high capacity” magazines, along with banning those on the FBI’s terrorist watch list from buying guns and nationwide “red flag” legislation.
Remember when Ted Kennedy found himself on the TSA’s no-fly list and had trouble getting his name removed, even though he was a United States Senator with a (known) body count of just one? Imagine how well a typical American would fare, trying to get their name removed from the FBI’s watch list if it somehow got on there by accident.
The Hill‘s Scott Wong wrote yesterday:
Democrats are under no illusion of what they’re up against. But by pushing for an assault weapons ban, they are fulfilling several goals: showing their liberal base they are listening and aggressively fighting for tougher gun reforms, and ramping up political pressure on Trump and McConnell by demonstrating what Democrats would do if voters handed them control of the White House and Senate in the 2020 elections.
Emphasis added, along with a hearty, “Well, I should certainly hope so!” from me.
ASIDE: My plan was to will Dad’s old Browning to my older son, but buy the modern equivalent ostensibly for me, but with the intent of leaving it to my younger son. I guess I’d better put that plan into action sooner rather than later, because it seems that never again will we be more than one election away from gutting the Second Amendment.
Pelosi, with a sharper sense of electoral self-preservation than 198 members of her caucus, might not bring the bill up for a vote, even with nearly 200 co-sponsors. If she did, and if it were to pass, it would go to the Senate where it would languish on GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s watch. Even so, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019 is a good indicator of where the Democrats are on 2A, and what they’d do in 2021 if they were to sweep the 2020 elections.
This bill is pretty much the entire Democrat wishlist of things they think they might just get away with — for now. But if the justification for banning all new semi-automatic firearms is that no civilian needs that much firepower, then it’s easy to imagine that the next step would be banning the manufacture and sale of higher-caliber ammunition. “Nobody needs a .45 for self-protection,” they’ll claim. “You’ll do just fine with a .38, or maybe even a .32.”
I’ll finish with something I stumbled across on Facebook the other day.
“The men who wrote the 2nd Amendment hadn’t just finished a hunting trip. They had just liberated a nation.”
Now then: What will we do with that legacy?
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