As we celebrated America’s 247th birthday, major cities across the nation –namely Washington DC, Baltimore, Fort Worth, and Philadelphia–were all rocked by senseless violence.
Democrats and gun control advocates, naturally, blamed Republicans for the crimes perpetrated by violent offenders. These offenders, mind you, often are prohibited possessors who boast extensive rap sheets involving gun charges.
Our forefathers secured our independence through firearms and intentionally enshrined the Second Amendment in our Constitution. Gun control, no matter how it’s presented, doesn’t safeguard freedom and safety.
Radical Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a gun control advocate whose policies largely benefit criminals, had the gall to lead the attack, saying, “It is time for this [Pennsylvania] legislature and, frankly, legislatures across the country to swear off their addiction to NRA money and to swear off their addiction to this gun fetish that is really only shared by a moderate quantity of the U.S. population."
He also said, “It is time for everybody and our legislature, including the ones who would like to walk around with an AR-15 lapel pin…It is time for every one of them to face the voters.”
What solution did he recommend to stop violence over the holiday weekend? Waxing poetic with rap songs.
Not to be outdone by Krasner was President Joe Biden, who used his July of 4th remarks to push for gun control, yet again, on the anniversary of the horrific Highland Park mass shooting.
The president’s statement read like this: “It is within our power to once again ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to require safe storage of guns, to end gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and to enact universal background checks.”
Much to the administration’s chagrin, we have a balance of powers. The judicial branch has largely delivered by blocking or striking down Biden directives pertaining to gun control.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, 7.5 million Americans have become first-time gun owners— especially women and minorities. Additionally, 60 million firearms, in total, were lawfully purchased between 2020 and 2022. Unsurprisingly, gun-owning attitudes are underreported, a new Rutgers University paper titled “Predicting Potential Underreporting of Firearm Ownership in a Nationally Representative Sample” says.
"The implications of false denials of firearms ownership are substantial," the paper said. "It may be that a percentage of firearm owners are concerned that their information will be leaked and the government will take their firearms or that researchers who are from universities that are typically seen as liberal and anti-firearm access will paint firearm owners in a bad light.”
The Biden administration has intentionally set its sights on firearms and related accessories under the guise of “safety” and “the freedom to live free of gun violence.”
President Biden has Armalite Rifles (AR15s), or modern sporting rifles (MSR), squarely in his crosshairs. He falsely equates these semi-automatic rifles with assault weapons even though they are physically and mechanically distinct and different. Contrary to popular belief, ARs are also infrequently used in crimes. Handguns are mostly abused by criminals–not MSRs.
Having recently built an AR-15 with parts from Brownells” MSR - I’m here to assure you that me and millions of law-abiding gun owners aren’t using them for malicious intent. Quite the contrary. I intend to use it for hunting and target shooting. I completed a background check and paid a $50 transfer fee to obtain my lower receiver from my local federal firearms license (FFL) dealer. Why should I be penalized for lawfully owning one?
Pistol braces are another common scapegoat. What does banning them accomplish in the fight against criminals? Absolutely nothing.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) noted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule “Factoring Criteria for Firearms With Attached ‘Stabilizing Braces,” published in January, “established new criteria for determining whether a pistol equipped with an attached stabilizing arm brace is a short-barreled rifle (SBR) and thus subject to regulation (and registration) under the National Firearms Act.”
There are 40 million legal pistol braces in circulation. They’re more common than not today because ATF even realized “affixing a brace did not convert a pistol into a rifle.”
The third target, unsurprisingly, is custom-built guns that are referred to as “ghost guns.” Are they as dangerous as believed?
Americans have been building custom guns since our founding. As I noted in Townhall in May 2020, “The concept of custom-building firearms, most recently with popular semi-automatic Armalite Rifles (AR-15s), isn’t new. In fact, people have been designing and modifying firearms for personal use essentially since our nation’s inception. Per ATF rules, “An individual may generally make a firearm for personal use.”
Even ATF Officer Thomas Chittum told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that custom guns “still represent a minority of the firearms that are being used in crimes.”
Last week, the Biden administration’s “ghost gun” ban was deemed illegal by a federal court. The judge wrote, “Because the court concludes that the government cannot regulate those items without violating federal law, the court holds that the government’s recently enacted final rule … is unlawful agency action taken in excess of the ATF’s statutory jurisdiction. On this basis, the court vacates the final rule."
As more Americans continue to purchase firearms lawfully, regulators and politicians shouldn’t craft draconian rules that deliver neither freedom nor safety.
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