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.
Traces: 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.
Call Your U.S. Senators and Representative: As noted, Feinstein intends to introduce her bill on January 3rd.
President Obama has said that gun control will be a “central issue” of
his final term in office, and he has vowed to move quickly on it.
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