President Joe Biden (D), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other anti-Second Amendment politicians have routinely attacked law-abiding Americans’ freedom and demonized firearms manufacturers while being soft on actual criminals. They do this while ignoring all the armed citizens in this country who defend themselves and others—many using firearms these politicians seek to ban.
This deliberate attack on law-abiding citizens just manifested itself in a 217-213 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to revive a ban on many commonly owned semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns; guns those who voted for this legislation deliberately mislabel as “assault weapons” for purely political purposes.
The bill, titled the “Assault Weapons Ban Act,” is reminiscent of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that was enacted in 1994, which sunset a decade later. It is also predictably backed by Brady, the Michael Bloomberg-funded Everytown and a handful of other gun-control groups.
“Barely a month after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen, gun-control advocates in Congress are spearheading an assault upon the freedoms and civil liberties of law-abiding Americans. The promises made in H.R. 1808 are nothing short of a lie based on willful ignorance of the disastrous 1994 Clinton Gun Ban, which failed to produce any significant drop in crime,” said Jason Ouimet, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), after the House’s vote.
Lawmakers, such as Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), conveniently ignore the fact that the previous iteration of such a ban didn’t reduce crime, according to a congressionally mandated study. These politicians also ignore the fact that firearms are utilized more than 1.6 million times annually for defense purposes, according to recent studies. Such is why the NRA details stories of law-abiding armed citizens in these pages every month to counter the fake-news narratives peddled by these politicians and the mainstream media.
The problem is that [semi-automatic rifles are] in common use. — Rep. Jerry Nadler
Common-Use Standards
If passed into law, this legislation would be in direct conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller (2008), which held that the Second Amendment protects “arms ‘in common use at the time’ for lawful purposes like self-defense” and arms that are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” With an estimated 24.4 million of these semi-automatic rifles in circulation, according to recent data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, it’s hard to see how AR-type rifles are anything other than in “common use.”
Some lawmakers, however, are being completely upfront about their disdain for the Second Amendment. Prior to the House’s vote, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) made some very pointed comments during a the bill’s hearing in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
When asked by Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) if the proposed legislation would ban guns that are in “common use” today, Nadler replied, “That’s the point of the bill.” And he didn’t stop there.
“To clarify, Mr. Chairman, you’re saying it is the point of the bill to ban weapons that are in common use in the United States today,” asked Bishop.
“Yes, the problem is that they’re in common use,” said Nadler, doubling down on his previous response. To Nadler, and those like him, law-abiding Americans simply using these rifles to exercise their rights is the problem.
“With more than 24 million potentially banned firearms in common use, these draconian restrictions fall in blatant opposition to the Supreme Court’s rulings in Bruen, Caetano v. Massachusetts and D.C. v. Heller. “Their refusal to recognize this reality places everyone at risk,” said Ouimet. “Any legitimate attempt to address our nation’s surge in violent crime cannot commence until anti-gun legislators step away from the radicals who defund our police departments, support prosecutors who refuse to prosecute dangerous criminals, and promote no-cash-bail policies that have turned once-proud communities into a playground of lawlessness and fear.”
There’s a Lot in This Bill
Beyond that, there is much buried within the roughly 14,000 words of the legislation.
The bill purports to ban “military-style” firearms, yet all firearms banned by it shoot a single round for each pull of the trigger, as they are semi-automatics, while the U.S. military, as well as most armed forces in the rest of the world, issue firearms capable of fully automatic fire to soldiers. Moreover, many of these “military-style” features mentioned in the legislation include features—like a pistol grip, a detachable magazine, an adjustable stock and more—that don’t make the firearms any more “deadly” and that are common features in many types of guns owned and sold to Americans citizens today.
The proposed ban also lists many firearms by specific manufacturer and model, not just by criteria. It also makes many pistols and shotguns illegal, which runs counter to the narrative that this is only about banning AR-style rifles. It also bans commonly owned, standard-capacity magazines, which, like “assault weapons,” are mislabeled as “large capacity ammunition feeding devices,” again for political purposes.
At press time, this egregious bill was headed to the U.S. Senate, where early reports indicated it was unlikely to pass. What this legislation is—and, perhaps, was designed to be—is a campaign issue. Anti-Second Amendment legislators decided the American people know so little about popular firearms and their rights that they’d rally to support legislators who voted to diminish our freedom. Speaker Pelosi wanted this to be a campaign issue in this midterm election (Nov. 8), and so now it is.
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