August 28, 2019
By Jim Grant
“After failing to ban rifles with frightening features, Democrats shift their attention to Red Flag laws.” - Source: NY Times.
With the rising number of highly televised mass-shootings in the last few years, many politicians and members of the media have proposed dozens of overly-simplistic solutions to this increasingly complicated problem.
The overwhelming majority of these solutions are shallow attempts at virtue-signaling. Others are naively simple, or outright ignore data on these shootings, like introducing a new Assault Weapons ban, despite FBI data demonstrating that doing so has no effect on crime . But even if gun-grabbers decided to ban all rifles, and had some way of instantly doing so, it would only reduce violent crime by 0.021%.
FBI Homicide statistics for 2007 show banning so-called “assault weapons” would have nearly no effect on crime at a little more than a 2% reduction.
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To put that in perspective, people in the United States are 276 times more likely to be killed by an unarmed person using only their hands then killed by a rifle of any sort. They’re also 638 times more likely to be murdered by someone with a blunt weapon like a hammer or a bat.
Despite this, many Democrats and a handful of milquetoast Republicans (Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.) on Capitol Hill have rallied to have these weapons banned. Thankfully for gun-owners, their effects have mostly been in vain.
And while these gun-grabbers have never proven themselves terribly clever or well-educated on the laws they pass or propose , they aren't total fools. Which could explain their shift away from an “assault weapons” ban towards Red Flag laws - which are infinitely more dangerous to the Second Amendment and also dangerous to the First, Forth, Fifth and other Amendments as well.
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Which is why it’s so troubling to see first daughter, Ivanka Trump work with Senator Pat Toomey (D-W.V) towards enacting these laws.
“Congress should enact Red Flag laws/ Extreme Risk Protection Orders in EVERY state and increase resources dedicated to mental health support.” - Ivanka Trump via her Twitter account, Aug 4, 2019, 10:16 AM
Not simply because these are anti-gun laws, but because of the potentially ruinous absurdly over-reaching nature of these proposed bills. In short, these laws allow anyone, for any reason, to have their firearms confiscated by police. For an in-depth look and analysis on this, read David Cordea’s piece, “The Danger of Red Flag Laws”
Few pieces of proposed legislation are more dangerous to the country, or more venomous to liberty as a whole, then these so-called Red Flag laws. Unfortunately, Trump isn’t revealing much in terms of whether or not he’ll support these laws - but the signs thus far aren’t great. Speaking with reporters outside the White House, he stated, “We have very, very strong background checks right now... But we have sort of missing areas and areas that don’t complete the whole circle.”
What this means for gun owners is unclear, but if the President’s extra-judicial banning of bump stocks is any indication, he will make a brass decision that will surrender yet another piece of the Second Amendment for nothing in return.
