Proposed Assault Weapon Ban

[unlawflcombatnt]

Below is an excerpt from an email I received today regarding
Sen Feinstein's proposed assault weapon ban:

"Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)—author of the federal “assault weapon” and “large” ammunition magazine ban of 1994-2004—has announced that on the first day of the new Congress—January 3rd— she will introduce a bill to which her 1994 ban will pale by comparison. On Dec. 17th, Feinstein said, “I have been working with my staff for over a year on this legislation” and “It will be carefully focused.” Indicating the depth of her research on the issue, she said on Dec. 21st that she had personally looked at pictures of guns in 1993, and again in 2012.

According to a Dec. 27th posting on Sen. Feinstein’s website and a draft of the bill obtained by NRA-ILA, the new ban would, among other things, adopt new definitions of “assault weapon” that would affect a much larger variety of firearms, require current owners of such firearms to register them with the federal government under the National Firearms Act, and require forfeiture of the firearms upon the deaths of their current owners. Some of the changes in Feinstein’s new bill are as follows:

· Reduces, from two to one, the number of permitted external features on various firearms. The 1994 ban permitted various firearms to be manufactured only if they were assembled with no more than one feature listed in the law. Feinstein’s new bill would prohibit the manufacture of the same firearms with even one of the features.

· Adopts new lists of prohibited external features. For example, whereas the 1994 ban applied to a rifle or shotgun the “pistol grip” of which “protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon,” the new bill would drastically expand the definition to include any “grip . . . or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.” Also, the new bill adds “forward grip” to the list of prohibiting features for rifles, defining it as “a grip located forward of the trigger that functions as a pistol grip.” Read literally and in conjunction with the reduction from two features to one, the new language would apply to every detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifle. At a minimum, it would, for example, ban all models of the AR-15, even those developed for compliance with California’s highly restrictive ban.

· Carries hyperbole further than the 1994 ban. Feinstein’s 1994 ban listed “grenade launcher” as one of the prohibiting features for rifles. Her 2013 bill carries goes even further into the ridiculous, by also listing “rocket launcher.” Such devices are restricted under the National Firearms Act and, obviously, are not standard components of the firearms Feinstein wants to ban. Perhaps a subsequent Feinstein bill will add “nuclear bomb,” “particle beam weapon,” or something else equally far-fetched to the features list.



· Expands the definition of “assault weapon” by including:

· Three very popular rifles: The M1 Carbine (introduced in 1944 and for many years sold by the federal government to individuals involved in marksmanship competition), a model of the Ruger Mini-14, and most or all models of the SKS.

· Any “semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle that has a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds,” except for tubular-magazine .22s.


· Any “semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle that has an overall length of less than 30 inches,” any “semiautomatic handgun with a fixed magazine that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds,” and any semi-automatic handgun that has a threaded barrel.

· Requires owners of existing “assault weapons” to register them with the federal government under the National Firearms Act (NFA). The NFA imposes a $200 tax per firearm, and requires an owner to submit photographs and fingerprints to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), to inform the BATFE of the address where the firearm will be kept, and to obtain the BATFE’s permission to transport the firearm across state lines.


· Prohibits the transfer of “assault weapons.” Owners of other firearms, including those covered by the NFA, are permitted to sell them or pass them to heirs. However, under Feinstein’s new bill, “assault weapons” would remain with their current owners until their deaths, at which point they would be forfeited to the government.


· Prohibits the domestic manufacture and the importation of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The 1994 ban allowed the importation of such magazines that were manufactured before the ban took effect. Whereas the 1994 ban protected gun owners from errant prosecution by making the government prove when a magazine was made, the new ban includes no such protection. The new ban also requires firearm dealers to certify the date of manufacture of any >10-round magazine sold, a virtually impossible task, given that virtually no magazines are stamped with their date of manufacture.


· Targets handguns in defiance of the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects the right to have handguns for self-defense, in large part on the basis of the fact handguns are the type of firearm “overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose.” Semi-automatic pistols, which are the most popular handguns today, are designed to use detachable magazines, and the magazines “overwhelmingly chosen” by Americans for self-defense are those that hold more than 10 rounds. Additionally, Feinstein’s list of nearly 1,000 firearms exempted by name (see next paragraph) contains not a single handgun. Sen. Feinstein advocated banning handguns before being elected to the Senate, though she carried a handgun for her own personal protection.

· Contains a larger piece of window dressing than the 1994 ban. Whereas the 1994 ban included a list of approximately 600 rifles and shotguns exempted from the ban by name, the new bill’s list is increased to nearly 1,000 rifles and shotguns. Other than for the 11 detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles and one other semi-automatic rifle included in the list, however, the list appears to be pointless, because a separate provision of the bill exempts “any firearm that is manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action.”



The Department of Justice study. On her website, Feinstein claims that a study for the DOJ found that the 1994 ban resulted in a 6.7 percent decrease in murders. To the contrary, this is what the study said: “At best, the assault weapons ban can have only a limited effect on total gun murders, because the banned weapons and magazines were never involved in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders. Our best estimate is that the ban contributed to a 6.7 percent decrease in total gun murders between 1994 and 1995. . . . However, with only one year of post-ban data, we cannot rule out the possibility that this decrease reflects chance year-to-year variation rather than a true effect of the ban. Nor can we rule out effects of other features of the 1994 Crime Act or a host of state and local initiatives that took place simultaneously.”


“Assault weapon” numbers and murder trends. From the imposition of Feinstein’s “assault weapon” ban (Sept. 13, 1994) through the present, the number of “assault weapons” has risen dramatically. For example, the most common firearm that Feinstein considers an “assault weapon” is the AR-15 rifle, the manufacturing numbers of which can be gleaned from the BATFE’s firearm manufacturer reports, available here. From 1995 through 2011, the number of AR-15s—all models of which Feinstein’s new bill defines as “assault weapons”—rose by over 2.5 million. During the same period, the nation’s murder rate fell 48 percent, to a 48-year low. According to the FBI, 8.5 times as many people are murdered with knives, blunt objects and bare hands, as with rifles of any type."

Murder numbers by weapon type:

Weapons 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Total 14,916 14,224 13,752 13,164 12,664
Total firearms: 10,129 9,528 9,199 8,874 8,583
Handguns 7,398 6,800 6,501 6,115 6,220
Rifles 453 380 351 367 323
Shotguns 457 442 423 366 356
Other guns 116 81 96 93 97
Firearms, type not stated 1,705 1,825 1,828 1,933 1,587
Knives or cutting instruments 1,817 1,888 1,836 1,732 1,694
Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.) 869 875 817 769 728

So in 2011--12,664 were murdered by weapons of all types
And in 2011--only 323 of them were murdered by rifles.

Another interesting stat:
More than 2x as many people are killed by a persons bare hands or feet than are killed with rifles.
(728 vs 323 in 2011)


"Feinstein makes several claims, premised on firearm traces, hoping to convince people that her 1994 ban reduced the (relatively infrequent) use of “assault weapons” in crime. However, traces do not indicate how often any type of gun is used in crime. As the Congressional Research Service and the BATFE have explained, not all firearms that are traced have been used in crime, and not all firearms used in crime are traced. Whether a trace occurs depends on whether a law enforcement agency requests that a trace be conducted. Given that existing “assault weapons” were exempted from the 1994 ban and new “assault weapons” continued to be made while the ban was in effect, any reduction in the percentage of traces accounted for by “assault weapons” during the ban, would be attributable to law enforcement agencies losing interest in tracing the firearms, or law enforcement agencies increasing their requests for traces on other types of firearms, as urged by the BATFE for more than a decade
"

[unlawflcombatnt]

Below is a direct quote from [url=http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2012/12/feinstein-to-introduce-updated-assault-weapons-bill-in-new-congress
]Senator Feinstein's site[/url], on how "dangerous" assault weapons are:

385 deaths over an 8 year period amounts 48 deaths per year due to assault weapons.

So Feinstein wants to partially repeal the 2nd Amendment, to avoid 48 deaths per year.

To put this in perspective, 35,000 people are killed per year in automobile related accidents. Less than 0.2% as many people are killed per year due to assault weapons vs. automobile-related accidents.

According to the FBI, over 700 people/year are murdered by the killers' bare hands. This means only 1/14th as many people are killed by assault weapons as by a killer's bare hands.

There's no rational justification for an assault weapon ban--
except 1:
Ensuring that the citizenry is never a threat to the Police, the State, or the Power Brokers of this country.

The assault weapon ban has nothing to do with the protection of the People, and everything to do with the protection of the Government, the Plutocracy, and their minions.

[unlawflcombatnt]

In case it wasn't apparent from the original article, an assault weapons' ban makes little sense, given the total number of murders that are committed by rifles (of which assault weapons are a subset)

Taken from FBI Homicide Stats Table 8

for 2011:

323 murders were committed with Rifles
...(Assault Weapons are some fraction of that 323)

728 murders were committed with Bare Hands
...(or with Feet, or some other body part)

1,694 murders were committed with Knives.

6,220 murders were committed with Pistols ("Handguns")

12,664 total murders were committed in 2011.

So lets break this down.
Since Assault Weapons are a subset of the 323 Rifle Murders,
the max number of Assault Weapons murders is <323.

So the fraction of Assault Weapon murders/Total murders is
<323 ÷ 12,664 = <0.025, or <2.5%.

So a ban on Assault Weapons, at best,
would reduce murders by <2.5%.
(And this is assuming that 0% of those Assault Weapon murders wouldn't just use another weapon--like a Pistol).

Meanwhile, ~35,000 are killed in Automobile-related accidents/year.

As such, an assault weapon ban would have only a minuscule affect on murders,
and even less on total annual trauma-related deaths.

However, it certainly does make Government and the Plutocracy
safer from the ire of the People.

Which is what this is really all about.

Attachments:

[unlawflcombatnt]

from the Christian Science Monitor:

Obama's gun-control proposals:
Will Republicans get on board?

Jan 17, 2013

by David Grant

"President Obama's push for universal background checks appears to have broad support in Congress, but not his other gun-control priorities – including an assault-weapons ban.

President Obama's gun-control proposals are getting a mixed reception on Capitol Hill, where there appears to be bipartisan support for universal background checks but little appetite for banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines – even among some Democrats.

Key Democratic leaders in the Senate have signaled that they are behind all the president's efforts, suggesting that they will get a full airing there. But meeting the 60-vote threshold to pass the president's entire agenda without a filibuster appears unlikely – and the Republican-controlled House shows no signs of taking action until the Senate passes a bill.

While national opinion polls have shown a greater openness to gun control after the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., they also indicate that the American public is overwhelmingly supportive only of universal background checks. And without overwhelming support, it seems, Republicans and Democrats in conservative-leaning districts fear they are more likely to face a backlash for a vote in favor of gun control than against it.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about the Second Amendment? A quiz.

“If you look at the combination of likelihood of passage and effectiveness of curbing gun crime, universal background checks is at the sweet spot,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) of New York.

According to a recent Washington Post-ABC poll, almost 9 in 10 Americans support universal background checks. That’s far higher than the slim majority of Americans who favor bans on assault-weapon sales or restrictions on magazine size, according to the same poll.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Mr. Obama's proposal to require background checks for all gun buyers drew almost no criticism from Republican lawmakers. Currently, gun sales from so-called “private sellers,” which make up about 4 in 10 firearms transactions, don’t require the buyer to pass a background check.

Rep. Mike Thompson (D) of California, chairman of the House’s Democratic task force on gun violence, told reporters on Monday he had spoken to several Republican members who were in favor of universal background checks.

But beyond universal background checks, the rest of the president’s proposals look as if they could be in for a hard slog.

Senate Democrats vow to fight for the president. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told students at Georgetown University’s Law Center on Wednesday that he would begin a series of hearings on gun control 2 weeks from Wednesday. That would mark the 1st congressional action on the subject....

Crucially, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada said in a statement Wednesday he was “committed” to Senate consideration of gun-violence legislation early in 2013.

But Democrats will need at least 5 Senate Republicans to avoid a filibuster. And when Republicans look at the options laid out by the president, they don’t like much of what they see.

“President Obama is targeting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R) of Florida.

Specifically, Republicans took aim at restrictions on assault weapons and potential new limits on magazines that hold the weapons' ammunition.

“Criminals aren’t going to follow legislation limiting magazine capacity. However, a limit could put law-abiding citizens at a distinct disadvantage when confronting a criminal,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina. “As for reinstating the assault-weapons ban, it has already been tried and failed.”

Many reacted negatively to Obama’s executive orders, saying the use of such powers shows the president is not acting in good faith.

“Instead of a thoughtful, open and deliberate conversation, President Obama is attempting to institute new restrictions on a fundamental constitutional right.... It’s the wrong way to unite people behind a proposal on such a powerful and emotional topic,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who had previously expressed some openness to restrictions on bullet magazines, in a statement. “The legislative proposals face an uphill battle in Congress.”

Some Democrats, too, might have reservations. More than a half-dozen red-state Democrats are up for election in 2014, and they may not want a gun vote hanging around their necks. Other Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have top grades from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and will have to be convinced to go along with the president. Freshman Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D) of North Dakota called Democratic proposals “extreme” before they even became public.

What happens in the Senate will do much to shape what, if any, action happens in Congress’s other half. The reaction from the House was summed up by a short statement from the office of Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio, effectively saying: Call us when the Senate does something.

"House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations,” said Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman. “And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that."

As in the Senate, a few House Democrats in conservative-leaning districts might be wary of a risky vote on guns. Support for gun rights is one reason that lawmakers such as Democratic Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah, Jim McIntyre (D) of North Carolina, and Nick Rahall of West Virginia survive. All three received financial support from the NRA.

Representative Rahall, for example, voted against the crime bill containing the original assault-weapons ban in 1994.

Moreover, more Democrats are looking at tight reelection contests than are Republicans. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates 16 Democratic seats in 2014 that are toss-ups or lean slightly toward the Democrat versus only 6 Republicans in a similar situation."

[unlawflcombatnt]

Feinstein to introduce Assault Weapon Ban on Thurs, Jan 24.

news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/feinstein-introduce-assault-weapons-ban-thursday-163138590--politics.html

[unlawflcombatnt]

news.yahoo.com/assault-weapons-ban-
announced-congress-faces-uphill-battle-171358623.html

"Senator Dianne Feinstein and several other Democrats said they were introducing a bill to ban semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips. It faces stiff opposition in Congress as well as from the National Rifle Association, the main U.S. lobby for gun manufacturers, and from many Americans.

"Getting this bill signed into law will be an uphill battle, and I recognize that - but it is a battle worth having," Feinstein said at a news conference to announce the bill.

The legislation mirrors some of the proposals that President Barack Obama offered last week as he vowed to make gun control a top priority in his second term.

Banning assault weapons is seen as the most unlikely part of Obama's gun control package to pass Congress. A previous ban expired in 2004 after 10 years.

With 310 million guns in civilian hands and 11,000 homicides with firearms last year, the United States is one of the world's most heavily armed and violent countries.

Feinstein's bill would ban the purchase of semiautomatic rifles that can accept a detachable magazine clip and prohibit high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

(Reporting By Thomas Ferraro, Editing by Alistair Bell)

..."

[unlawflcombatnt]

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-25/assault-weapons-ban-
lacks-democratic-votes-to-pass-senate.html

[unlawflcombatnt]

from Bloomberg

Assault Weapons Ban Lacks Dem Votes to Pass Senate

By Heidi Przybyla and Julie Hirschfeld Davis -

Jan 26, 2013

"A proposed ban on sales of assault weapons would be defeated in the U.S. Senate unless some lawmakers changed their current views, based on a Bloomberg review of recent lawmaker statements and interviews.

At least 6 of the 55 senators in the Democratic caucus have expressed skepticism or outright opposition to a ban, the review found. That means Democrats wouldn’t have a 51-vote majority to pass the measure, let alone the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster to bring it to a floor vote.

A ban on the military-style weapons is among the legislative goals President Barack Obama outlined in his recommendations to Congress on curbing gun violence after the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School."

[unlawflcombatnt]

from the NRA

Feinstein Introduces Massive Semi-Auto Firearm and Magazine Ban


Jan 25, 2013

"On Jan. 24, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced S. 150, her long-anticipated bill to ban "assault weapons" and "large" magazines. Contrary to media claims that Feinstein wants to "reinstate" the 1994 ban, the bill will go much further toward her stated long-term goal of gun confiscation, imposing a host of absurdly broad definitions and onerous restrictions:

Ban the sale, transfer, manufacture or importation of 157 named firearms. Presumably, these were chosen by looking at pictures, as Sen. Feinstein has said she did before introducing her first legislation on the issue in 1993.

Ban all semi-automatic rifles that can accept a detachable magazine. This is because the bill would ban any semi-automatic detachable-magazine rifle that has even one "feature," particularly a pistol grip—which is defined to include any "characteristic that can function as a grip." Other features that would cause a rifle to be banned include a forward grip; folding, telescoping, or detachable stock; grenade launcher or (as an absurd propaganda move) rocket launcher; barrel shroud; or a threaded barrel.

Ban all detachable-magazine semi-auto pistols that have any of the following: a threaded barrel, second pistol grip, or magazine that mounts anywhere other than the grip. The bill would also ban any handgun that is a semi-automatic version of a fully automatic handgun.

Ban all semi-automatic rifles and handguns that have fixed magazines that accept more then 10 rounds.

Ban all semi-automatic shotguns that have just one of the following: a folding, telescoping, or detachable stock; a pistol grip; a fixed magazine that can accept more than five rounds, a detachable magazine; a forward grip; a revolving cylinder; or a grenade or rocket launcher. As with the rifle provision, this could potentially ban any semi-auto shotgun, because all of them have "characteristics that can function as a grip." And of course, countless Americans have pistol-grip shotguns for home defense.

Ban all belt-fed semi-automatic firearms, such as semi-auto replicas of historic machine guns.

Ban all frames or receivers of banned guns, even though in many cases they are identical to the frames and receivers of guns that would not be banned.

Ban "combinations of parts" from which "assault weapons" can be assembled. Read broadly, this could ban the acquisition of a single spare part that could be combined with parts you already own.

Ban any "part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment, or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle"--a vague definition that could ban items such as competition trigger parts.

Ban the sale or transfer of all ammunition feeding devices that hold more than ten rounds. Even those lawfully possessed before passage of the bill could never be transferred, even to your heirs through a will.

Though not requiring registration of currently owned firearms under the National Firearms Act (as Feinstein threatened in December), the new bill would go far beyond the failed 1994 semi-auto ban by requiring background checks on the private transfer of any "grandfathered" firearm.

Finally, unlike the 1994 ban, the new bill will not include an automatic "sunset" clause, so it would remain in effect unless repealed.

In announcing the bill, Feinstein misrepresented the effectiveness of past semi-auto bans. For example, she claimed that Maryland's "assault pistol" ban had reduced crime. But in Maryland, the murder trend after the state passed its ban on so-called "assault pistols" was far worse than in the rest of the country. Similarly, in California, during the first five years after passage of the state's 1989 "assault weapon" ban, the state's murder rate increased 26 percent, compared to an 11 percent increase in the rest of the country. During the first five years after California expanded the ban starting in 2000, the state's murder rate increased 10 percent, compared to a six percent decrease in the rest of country.

Feinstein also misrepresented the findings of a congressionally mandated study completed by Jeffrey Roth and Christopher Koper for the Urban Institute.

In the handouts provided by her office, Feinstein claimed the report said "Assault weapons are disproportionately involved in murders with multiple victims, multiple wounds per victim, and police officers as victims." But here's what the report really found:

"Some of our own analyses added evidence that assault weapons are disproportionately involved in murders with multiple victims, multiple wounds per victim, and police officers as victims" (emphasis added), but "We were unable to detect any reduction to date in two types of gun murders that are thought to be closely associated with assault weapons, those with multiple victims in a single incident and those producing multiple bullet wounds per victim. We did find a reduction in killings of police officers since mid-1995. However, the available data are partial and preliminary, and the trends may have been influenced by law enforcement agency policies regarding bullet-proof vests."

The misuse and misinterpretation of study findings has become a common tactic of anti-gun politicians because they know that the 1994 ban had no real impact on crime. In one of the frequent moments of candor that make his allies cringe, Vice-President Biden admitted as much in an online forum Jan. 24, saying, "t is true that the vast majority of gun deaths in America are not a consequence of the use of an assault weapon" and that a ban "is not an answer to all the problems." Nonetheless, Biden claimed the ban is a "rational limitation" because in his opinion, people concerned about self-defense should just use double-barreled shotguns anyway.

Despite advice like this, Americans have voted with their pocketbooks, buying about 50 million semi-automatic firearms--including nearly 4 million AR-15 rifles--since 1991. And, since the Supreme Court said in District of Columbia v. Heller that a handgun ban was unconstitutional in part because "handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home," popular rifles should be just as firmly protected."

[unlawflcombatnt]

It's worth noting again, and as often as possible, what a small % of murders and killings are due to Assault Weapons (AW)

Of the 12,664 murders in 2011,
only 323 were committed with rifles of any type.
AWs are a subset of this 323 number.
Less than 2.6% of murders were committed with AWs.
Less than 1 out of 40 murders was committed by Assault Weapons.

In comparison,
728 murders were committed by the killer's bare hands.
That's more than 2x as many as were committed by Rifles or AWs.

Excerpted from a previous post:

Murder numbers by weapon type:
(Source: FBI )

Year............................2009...... 2010...... 2011

Total.........................13,752.... 13,164.....12,664
Total firearms............. 9,199...... 8,874...... 8,583
Handguns.................. 6,501...... 6,115...... 6,220
Rifles.......................... 351........ 367........ 323
Shotguns .....................423........ 366........ 356
Knives or
cutting instruments......1,836......1,732......1,694
Personal weapons
(hands, fists, feet, etc)............817.........769........728

Here's another article with excerpts describing Feinstein's proposed gun ban, S. 150.

"
In S. 150, Sen. Feinstein proposes to:

• Ban magazines and other such parts that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, regardless of the firearm for which they are designed.

• Ban 157 firearms by name. (Her 1994 ban banned only 19 guns by name.)

• Ban detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic shotguns not exempted by name. It would ban them for having a “pistol grip,” defined to mean any “characteristic that can function as a grip.” It would also ban the rifles and shotguns for having a folding, telescoping, or detachable stock (defined as any stock adjustable for length or height, like competition- and custom-grade stocks); a forward grip; a threaded barrel; or a barrel shroud (handguard). It would also ban a semi-automatic shotgun for having a fixed magazine that holds than five rounds of any size ammunition, a detachable magazine, or a revolving cylinder. It would ban the rifles and shotguns for having a “grenade launcher or rocket launcher,” which Feinstein includes for propaganda purposes, since launchers are restricted under the National Firearms Act and aren’t present on the rifles and shotguns in question.

• Exempt a relatively small number of detachable magazine semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic shotguns “as such firearm was manufactured on the date of introduction of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013.” That would mean that manufacturers of exempted rifles and shotguns wouldn’t be permitted to change the names or the configuration of the exempted guns. It would also mean that a gun owner would violate the law by modifying an exempted firearm, such as by changing the barrel length, installing a heavier “match” barrel in a rifle, changing iron sights, removing a pistol gripped stock in favor of a semi-pistol grip stock, or reducing the magazine capacity of a tubular magazine shotgun.

• Ban all semi-automatic rifles and pistols that have fixed magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, except for tubular-magazine .22 caliber rifles.

• Ban any semi-automatic handgun that uses a detachable magazine, if it has a threaded barrel, a second pistol grip, or a magazine that mounts anywhere other than in the grip, or if it is a semi-automatic version of a fully automatic handgun.

• Ban frames and receivers of guns that would not be banned, because they are identical to the frames or receivers of guns that would be banned.

• Ban “combinations of parts” from which “assault weapons” could be assembled. This could be read to ban the acquisition of a single spare part which, in conjunction with other spare parts, would constitute a unique “combination of parts.”

• Ban parts that accelerate the firing rate of a semiautomatic rifle. This could be read to ban competition trigger parts and the like.

• Ban all belt-fed semi-automatic firearms.

• Prohibit people from transferring ownership of banned magazines, even through a will.

• Require people who sell existing “assault weapons” to run the sale through a dealer, to subject the buyer to a criminal background check.

• Exempt active and retired law enforcement officers, and military personnel from the bans. This is odd, since Feinstein claims the firearms and magazines are useful for crime, and military personnel are not issued the firearms in question.

• “Exempt” specifically-named bolt-action, pump-action, lever-action and other manually-operated rifles and shotguns. However, naming guns that wouldn’t be banned is merely for show, as would “exempting” blue automobiles in a bill proposing to ban red ones. As with Sen. Feinstein’s 1994 exemption list, her current one doesn’t contain any handguns.

[unlawflcombatnt]

Below is a compilation of targets that were promoted by a Law Enforcement supplier, to desensitize LE to shooting civilian targets. The graphic has since been removed, so the original versions are no longer available online. Fortunately, someone at the Survivalist Boards made a copy and uploaded it.



According to the supplier--Law Enforcement Targets, Inc.--these targets were initially requested by the law enforcement community.

They were removed due to public outcry.

[unlawflcombatnt]

Feinstein is not about to give up on unconstitutionally disarming Americans, just because previous hearings went against her assault weapon ban plans.

from the National Rifle Association

Feinstein Holds Hearings on Gun and Magazine Ban

March 1, 2013

"On Wednesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has been advocating banning one sort of gun or another for over 30 years, held Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on her new gun and magazine ban legislation, S. 150, the "Assault Weapons Ban of 2013."

Among those testifying in support of the bill were John Walsh, the U.S. Attorney for Colorado, representing the Obama Department of Justice, Milwaukee police chief Edward Flynn, and Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter. Testifying against the bill were former U.S. Rep. Sandy Adams (R-Fla.), Fordham University law professor and longtime Second Amendment scholar Nicholas Johnson, and attorney and constitutional scholar David Hardy.

Feinstein insisted on holding her own hearings because hearings held a month ago by Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) didn't produce enough support for her bill. In the earlier hearings, NRA Executive Vice-President Wayne LaPierre, University of Denver law professor David Kopel, and attorney Gayle Trotter spoke against banning "assault weapons" and magazines that hold 11 or more rounds, and also against criminalizing private sales, gifts and trades of firearms. Sen. Feinstein and most of her supporters at this hearing demonstrated ignorance, hypocrisy, and bad behavior from start to finish, and never offered evidence to support the restrictions they advocated.

Incredibly, Sen. Feinstein began the hearings with a video showing an after-market device that helps a person pull a semi-automatic rifle trigger faster, citing the existence of the contraption as a reason to ban the rifles themselves. That would be akin to banning automobiles because someone might soup them up to make them go faster. Tellingly, Feinstein proposes to ban the guns themselves, as well as the device.

After Walsh and Flynn advocated the gun and magazine bans, and "universal" background checks, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked both of them if they knew how many murders are committed with rifles of any type, and how many prosecutions they had undertaken of criminals who failed background checks when illegally trying to buy guns from dealers.

Easy questions, one would think, but Walsh fumbled his answers like a third-string running back playing his first game of the season in an ice storm, saying that he didn't know for sure about rifle murders and that his prosecutions had numbered zero.

Flynn then interrupted Sen. Graham to say that prosecuting criminals who illegally try to buy guns was irrelevant. The chief's attempts to cut Sen. Graham off were so disrespectful that Sen. Feinstein herself intervened, banging the gavel and insisting on civility during the proceedings. By stark contrast, Sen. Graham did the people of South Carolina proud, by distinguishing himself with truly remarkable restraint. And for the record, Sen. Graham noted, rifles of any type are used in only about 2.5 percent of murders, half the percentage accounted for by murders with bare hands.

Prosecutor Walsh may not have had much to say about prosecutions, but he had quite a bit to say about banning guns, and it didn't help Feinstein's cause. Asked by the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whether S. 150 would be constitutional, Walsh said that it would be constitutional only if the guns that are banned are not common, are "dangerous and unusual," and are not relevant to the right of self-defense. Of course, the firearms that would be banned by S. 150 are common, and are not "dangerous and unusual" in the sense in which that term has been used historically in the law. And it should go without saying that magazines that hold 11 or more rounds and firearms designed to use them are certainly relevant to self-defense.

Walsh had even more to say about banning guns when Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked him to explain what makes a gun an "assault weapon." According to Walsh, any rifle that has a "very high" rate of fire and that uses a "very high-capacity" magazine is an "assault weapon." Assuming that Walsh thinks semi-automatic rifles have "very high" rates of fire, and that any magazine that holds 11 or more rounds is "very high-capacity," his description might fit with S. 150's ban on detachable magazine semi-automatic rifles that have any "characteristic that can function as a grip"--in other words, all of them. It wouldn't, however, explain S. 150's proposed ban on almost every semi-automatic shotgun, some handguns, and various fixed-magazine rifles.

Sen. Cornyn expressed doubt that S. 150 would reduce crime, for at least two reasons. First, as he pointed out, the congressionally mandated study of Feinstein's 1994 ban determined that "The evidence is not strong enough for us to conclude that there was any meaningful effect [of the ban on crime]; i.e., that the effect was different from zero." Second, he noted that "out of 76,000 denied background checks, the FBI referred to the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco, Firearms, a verdict or plea was reached in 13 cases," a track record he described as "abysmal."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) disputed Walsh's claim that Feinstein's 1994 ban had not been sufficiently evaluated--a claim that put Walsh at odds with Feinstein, who claims that studies show that the 1994 ban reduced crime. Sen. Cruz said, "The Department of Justice has funded at least three studies, on whether that bill had any positive effect. In 1999, the DOJ had concluded that the Assault Weapons Ban, quote, 'Failed to reduce the average number of victims-per-gun incident, or multiple gunshot wound victims.' In 2004, the [National] Institute for Justice concluded that the Assault Weapons Ban produced, quote, 'No discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.' And then, in 1997, the [congressionally mandated study by the Urban Institute] likewise concluded that there was no evidence to say any meaningful effect different from zero.' Are you aware of any empirical data to the contrary? We have three studies concluded from the Department of Justice that the prior ban had no effect."

Smart enough to realize that he had been cornered, Walsh simply contradicted the clear evidence, claiming "there's certainly enough evidence that assault weapons are used disproportionately in attacks with multiple victims and victims with multiple wounds." In fact, however, the Urban Institute study stated just the opposite--that under the ban, researchers "were unable to detect any reduction to date in two types of gun murders that are thought to be closely associated with assault weapons, those with multiple victims in a single incident and those producing multiple bullet wounds per victim."

Prof. Johnson explained in considerable detail why S. 150's definitions of "assault weapon" are "unsustainable under the lowest level of constitutional review [and] fail even to meet the rudimentary, rational basis requirement." Attorney David Hardy focused on explaining the difference between fully automatic rifles used by the military and semi-automatic rifles that S. 150 would ban, explained that rifles like the AR-15 are not particularly powerful, and showed how S. 150 would ban guns that are functionally identical to guns that would not be banned.

Former Rep. Adams summarized the findings of the congressionally mandated study of Feinstein's 1994 ban, saying that "the banned weapons, and magazines were never involved in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders" and summarized a follow up study's conclusions, saying that "assault weapons were used in a particularly small percentage of gun crimes, and that assailants fired less than four shots on average, a number well within the 10 round magazine limit imposed by the ban." She also cited the success of measures she had sponsored in the Florida Legislature to prevent the purchase of firearms by those whose mental illness might create a risk of violence, and concluded "It is not time for feel-good legislation, so you can say you did something, but it is time for a true discussion on the culture of violence, and how to prevent more violent crime."

Then, to the regret of every civil human being in the room, came Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Durbin began with a disrespectful attack on Prof. Johnson. After calling the Second Amendment "a suicide pact," and saying--with apparent reference to commonly owned firearms like the AR-15--that "what has become common in America is unacceptable in a civilized country," Durbin repeatedly refused to let Professor Johnson answer the questions thrown at him, and then falsely claimed that AR-15s and similar firearms had been "excluded by [the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v.] Heller."

Eventually, Durbin allowed Professor Johnson to respond, at which point Johnson politely and articulately handed Durbin his hat, concluding, "If you go before the Supreme Court with what is ultimately a piece of legislation that really just generates more demand for the very type of gun that you're trying to ban, ultimately you're going to have the same failure that you had [with the 1994 ban]."

Then, in the most despicable comment of the day, low even by anti-gun zealots' often subterranean standards, Durbin went after Rep. Adams.

After Rep. Adams acknowledged that her husband--a fellow law enforcement officer--had died in the line of duty, Durbin sarcastically said, "I'm sure you'll now support the universal background check to keep the guns out of the hands of criminals, won't you?"

In days gone by, such a heartless attack wouldn't have been tolerated by fellow senators. But Rep. Adams displayed the cool head that served her well both in law enforcement and in politics, looking Durbin straight in the eyes and saying, "No, sir."

Some comic relief would have been welcome at that point, but Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), the comedian-turned-politician, instead made a few comments pretending to respect Minnesota's firearm traditions, then listed several shootings in which semi-automatic rifles or magazines larger than 10 rounds were used, and said he doubted that anyone needed the same kinds of firearms and magazines for self-defense. Franken had apparently missed the comments of Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) earlier in day; Sen. Lee had cited statistics showing that in nearly half of defensive firearm uses, there are two or more attackers, and in nearly 25 percent, there are three or more attackers.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) challenged Professor Johnson's assessment of S. 150's constitutionality, saying that legal challenges to the 1994 "assault weapons" ban had been unsuccessful and that "the courts have a responsibility to deem constitutional, to presume constitutional, valid acts of the legislature."

Professor Johnson disagreed, pointing out that under the Supreme Court's decision in Heller, declaring the Second Amendment to protect a fundamental, individual right to keep and bear all bearable arms for defensive purposes, for gun-ban legislation to survive "requires something far more than simply rational basis. That is, it's not an automatic deference to whatever the legislature does, because now, what we're talking about is a constitutional right."

The next attack on that right at the federal level is scheduled for next week, when the Senate Judiciary Committee will meet again--this time to mark up several pieces of gun-related legislation including S. 150 and a bill criminalizing private firearm transfers."