The proposed ban on "Assault Weapons" is even more illogical.
Assault weapons are a subset of Rifles.
Just 285 of 8,454 firearm homicides were due to Rifles.
That's < 1/day.
If we assume ½ of those rifles were Assault Weapons, that's 143/year.
That's less than 1 person every other day killed by an Assault Weapon.
Assault weapons are already banned for the 35+ million residents of California (about 1/8th of the US population).
In addition to California,
many other states (such as New York) aleady ban high capacity magazines.
The following states already have bans on 10+ round magazines.
California
New York
Connecticut
DC
Hawaii
Maryland
Massachusetts
.................
The following states already ban 15+ round magazines
Colorado
New Jersey
...............
2 states already ban "detachable" magazines.
California
Maryland
This means banning magazines that can be removed by hand, without the use of an additional tool.
Instead, rifles must have a magazine lock--requiring a screwdriver or special tool to remove it.
Rifles in California & Maryland can
not be sold without already having this magazine lock installed.
Subsequent removal of the lock would make the gun Illegal in those states.
"Assault Weapon" bans are fallaciously justified to "prevent mass shootings"
--which is illogical based on statistics noted above.
But it's a nice hot-button issue to distract from real problems, such as Wealth Inequality & the Economy.
(Note all the air-time & news-reporting space devoted to this issue by Hillary Clinton).
But there's another, conveniently ignored reason.
And it is not about the safety or well-being of "We, the People."
Rather, it's about the safety of the rich & powerful--such as Diane Feinstein & Michael Bloomberg--
who rarely get close enough to anyone with a simple handgun to be endangered.
Meanwhile, the rich & powerful have their own heavily-armed Private Security (Private Police) forces.
(Jim Webb made this point in the Democratic Presidential debate.)
No, Assault Weapon Bans are
not about protecting "We, the People."
To the contrary,
They're about protection FROM "We, the People."It's about protection against domestic unrest.
It's about protecting the Government & the 1%
from the wrath of "We, the People."
It may sound over-the-top, conspiratorial, and even a little corny to state this.
But it's about protection from overthrow of the Corporate Plutocracy & Government by "We, the People."
It's about protection against an armed uprising.
And that's exactly what the Founding Fathers intended to protect with the 2nd Amendment:
the ability of "We, the People" to overthrow an un-representative government--by force if necessary.
And that's really what the Feinsteins, Clintons, Bloombergs are worried about.
They're worried about Assault Weapons because of their longer-range that can hit from a distance.
Because they're private police forces can protect them from everything else.
Bans on Assault Weapons are designed to protect the American ruling class--not it's less-affluent subjects.
And
not "We, the People."
handgunlaw.us/documents/NoHiCapChemSpray.pdf