Democrats have been off the rails the last few days trying to use the tragedy in Uvalde to pass gun control to please their base and demonize Republicans as heartless gun nuts to help their political fortunes in the midterms.
It is looking more and more like the school shooting was a total failure to follow the system rather than deficiencies in the design of the system itself. A clearly disturbed kid passed his FBI background check (fail) and was able to legally buy a rifle. He was able to linger outside the school for 12 whole minutes shooting his gun at the building without being confronted (fail) before entering. He was then able to walk right in through an unlocked door (fail) with no armed security on site (fail.) He was able to gain access to a classroom that wasn’t locked down (fail) despite multiple gunshots ringing out for several minutes. There was no police response at all for 14 minutes (fail.) The police who did respond briefly tried to enter the building, but then decided it was just too dangerous and retreated outside (gutless, cowardly fail.) It took a full hour (fail) for competent law enforcement to arrive and end the siege. So the system had multiple opportunities to work, but multiple failures on the part of the people in charge of implementing it allowed the evil bastard to carry out his depraved act. However, that doesn’t mean there are not things we can still do to improve the system. Enhanced background checks, red flag laws, single entry points for schools, and certainly more armed security are worth considering. Lots of people have ideas on how to make schools safer. The more robust the security is, the better.
But the only thing Democrats want to talk about is gun control. Or more to the point, gun bans. And their main target is of course the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
They call it an “assault rifle.” Technically, it isn’t based on the US Army’s definition. While it does have many of the features of an assault rifle (compact, intermediate power cartridge, detachable magazine), it is missing one critical feature. The AR-15 is semi-automatic. Assault rifles are fully-automatic. Or to be more precise, assault rifles are select-fire, meaning they can function in both semi and fully automatic modes by flipping a switch. The difference is important. When you pull the trigger on a semi-automatic weapon, one bullet comes out. To fire again, you have to release the trigger and pull it again. A fully automatic weapon will keep firing bullets at very fast rate until the trigger is released or it runs out of ammo. Basically, it operates like what most lay people think of as a “machine gun.” So are semi-automatic weapons rare? Not at all. Almost all modern pistols are semi-automatic, as are several styles of rifle. While not technically semi-automatic, the functionality of revolvers is basically the same too. You pull the trigger and a bullet comes out. Release the trigger and pull it again, and another bullet comes out. This is in contrast to weapons where some other action must be performed before it is ready to fire again. For example pump shot guns, lever-action rifles, bolt-action rifles, and even some pistols need the user to manually manipulate some mechanism to load the next round before the trigger can be pulled again and another round fired.
They call it a “weapon of war.” Well, yeah, It is a weapon so it could be used to fight a war. So what? So is a Glock pistol. So is a tomahawk or a bow-and-arrow. What they really want the uninformed to think is that the AR-15 is some kind of ultra-deadly weapon of mass destruction that could only have military applications. This is silly. The AR-15 is an excellent choice for home defense. It is also a prime choice for varmint hunting. Some people use them to kill off nuisance animals. And it is extremely well suited to serving the prime function of the 2nd Amendment, defense against tyranny, both external and internal. The 223 cartridge fired by the AR-15 actually isn’t very powerful for a rifle round. In fact, it is significantly less powerful than a typical hunting round. Some States actually ban the 223 for deer hunting because it could result in an unethical kill (i.e. the animal might suffer a needlessly slow and painful death.) The 223 is virtually identical to the 5.56 NATO round used by the US military. Obviously, the military aren’t complete idiots, so what gives? Basically, the 223/5.56 was chosen as the standard military round because A) it is small, meaning soldiers can carry more of them so they are less likely to run out of ammo in a fight, and B) it has very light recoil making it much easier to keep on target when firing in fully-automatic (i.e. machine gun-like) mode. The 223 was definitely not chosen for it’s ballistic power or lethality.
They call it the “weapon of choice” for school shooters. I don’t know offhand what percentage of school shooters use AR-15 style rifles, but it certainly seems significant. Again, so what? The AR-15 is wildly popular in the United States. If some evil asshole is going to use a rifle to commit some atrocity, odds are pretty high it will be committed with an AR-15. If a hero stops a bad guy using a rifle of his own, odds are that will also be an AR-15. Part of the reason AR-15s are used so often is they are excellent weapons. Another reason is AR-15s are ubiquitous… which is also in part because they are excellent weapons. The “operating system of choice” for computer hackers is Microsoft Windows. The “phone of choice” for prank callers is the iPhone. Not because there is anything inherently bad about them. It is just what everybody uses because they are popular, effective, and widely supported. The implication Democrats want you to make is that without the AR-15, school shootings wouldn’t happen. Or at least they would be less deadly. This makes no sense. How much firepower do you think is required to slaughter school children cowering under their desks? The AR-15 is certainly up to the task, but so is virtually any other semi-automatic weapon in existence. (Along with many other weapon types, for that matter.) And when I say virtually every other semi-automatic weapon, that includes run-of-the-mill pistols. Don’t believe me? The deadliest school shooting ever in the United States is still the Virginia Tech massacre. In that shooting, an evil asshole named Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 people and injured 17 others. The weapons he used were two small(-ish) semi-automatic handguns: a .22 caliber Walther P22 and a 9mm Glock 19. Most gun people think the .22 is woefully inadequate for personal defense because the cartridge is so underpowered (The idea being a personal defense gun needs to be immediately disabling. It doesn’t matter if the perp eventually bleeds out if he is still able to murder you in the meantime.) So clearly, you don’t need to have an AR-15 to murder a bunch of unsuspecting and defenseless bystanders.
Joe Biden used the fist 60 seconds of his address to the nation to display a little bit of empathy and offer some words of healing. With that obligatory formality out of the way, he was able to move on to his primary goal. Demonizing law-abiding gun owners and accusing Republicans of murdering children. All while shamelessly spewing anti-gun propaganda. Of course, he had to include his favorite stupid quip about deer not wearing Kevlar vests (Again, the 223 is not particularly powerful, and certainly not armor piercing. It’s an asinine saying, but he must have polling showing that it plays well with his firearms-ignorant base. Or maybe it actually sounds clever to his rotting old brain.) He then went on to tell a bullshit story (as he often does) about his personal anguish over how these types of shootings only seem to happen in America. The Twitter thread below, does a pretty good job of debunking this myth. I would recommend clicking the link and following the whole thing if you are interested.
President Pants Load also tried to claim that the 1994 assault weapons ban was a rousing success. This is total bullshit. First of all, it didn’t even ban semi-automatic rifles, is just limited the number of features they could come with from the factory. Features and options which a shooter could easily buy separately and bolt on themselves after purchase if they were so inclined. It did limit the capacity of new magazines to 10 rounds. So, in the case of the AR-15, instead of the standard 30 round magazine you would get a 10 round magazine. You might say, “Wow, they reduced the number of rounds by 2/3. That is a big deal. No wonder people were safer.” The thing is, magazines are swappable. You can have multiple magazines loaded up and ready to go. As many as you can carry. That is the whole point of them. How long does it take to swap out the magazine in an AR-15? A total doofus could do it in 10 seconds or less. With practice, you can learn to do it in less than 3 seconds. How much difference is that 3-10 second pause going to make in a real world situation. If you are in a fire fight with another person shooting back at you, it could be the difference between life and death. If you are mowing down high schoolers hiding in closets or college kids stumbling out of a bar at closing, it won’t make any difference at all.
But Biden said gun deaths went down after the 1994 ban, you might complain. And, that is factually correct. However, the drop was a continuation of a decades long trend in falling violent crime. The impact of the ban on gun crime, if any, was indiscernible. Which is totally unsurprising to anyone who understands firearms and what the 1994 bill actually did. Biden went on to further say that mass shootings “tripled” after the ban expired. The truth is, the trend in mass shootings can vary wildly depending on how you define a “mass shooting.” The government itself has changed how it defines mass shootings several times over the years. The current definition is “a single incident where 4 or more people are shot.” I can’t find the link right now, but someone reworked the calculation using 3 and 5 as the number of victims, and in both cases the trend went in the opposite direction. I’ll leave it to you to speculate on why the government chose “4” as the magic number for the cutoff. What we can say for sure is the overall rate of gun violence was unaffected when the 1994 gun ban expired.
I’m going to be blunt. Guns are very dangerous. By design. All guns. Not just the AR-15. Any gun that is effective for self defense purposes will also be effective at slaughtering defenseless innocents. When the Democrats get on TV and say they respect the 2nd Amendment but just want “common sense” gun control laws, they are either ignorant or lying. Banning the AR-15 won’t reduce gun crime one iota in this country. The only way to put a meaningful dent in gun crime with a ban is to ban almost everything. Certainly all semi-automatic weapons would need to be banned. That includes the most popular sporting rifle in the world, the AR-15. It would include the most popular handgun in the world, the Glock. Every pistol designed for concealed carry. Virtually everything outside of bolt action hunting rifles and single shots. If you are an evil prick determined to murder innocent people and you have a modern firearm, you are going to be able to cause a lot of carnage. That is just the sad truth. So don’t say you support common sense gun laws as a means to reduce shootings and still maintain you support the 2nd Amendment. You either believe in the 2nd Amendment, or you don’t. You believe that people have a God-given right to defend themselves or you don’t. Fiddling around the edges won’t make a difference. And everybody who has thought the gun debate through realizes that. (This article is an excellent explanation of that point.) The Democrats “common sense” gun bans are just a foot in the door to get a little closer to their ultimate goal. A total ban on most, if not all, privately owned firearms in the United States. It might sound like a moderate position to only want to ban the “really dangerous” guns. But the reality is they are all really dangerous.
According to the FBI, rifles are only used in 3% of the murders committed using firearms in the United States. And that is considering all rifles, of which the AR-15 is just a subset. Even if you assume that 100% of those rifles were AR-15s. Even if you assume that every one of those people murdered by a rifle would have been saved, and not just murdered with a different kind of weapon. Even if you assume it is possible to confiscate the 10s of millions of AR-15s currently in circulation in the U.S., without causing the people to revolt. Even if you make all of those dubious assumptions, an AR-15 ban would still only reduce gun crime by 3%. In other words, it would be barely noticeable. 97% of the gun violence would still remain… at a bare minimum. Do you really believe the gun grabbers will be happy with that result? Do you really believe they will stop with the AR-15?
The Founders put the right to keep and bear arms right near the top of the Bill of Rights for a reason. They understood how crucial it was for the people to be able to defend themselves, both individually and collectively, to the security of the country and the protection of liberty. The Democrats and the left don’t believe in the right to keep and bear arms. They think it is a silly, frivolous, and self-indulgent right that serves no real purpose in the modern world. They think the 2nd Amendment is misguided, antiquated, and irrelevant in today’s society. They can’t imagine a scenario where citizens would need firearms to protect themselves. They think right wingers are a bunch of heartless, paranoid, gun nuts who love their AR-15s more than they love their own children. And they think allowing millions of racist, retrograde, nationalistic yokels to keep more firearms than most armies is crazy.
Conservatives believe that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is absolutely necessary to the security of a free state. Just like the 2nd Amendment says in plain language. We believe that guns are the last bastion against tyranny. We believe the right to own firearms for one’s own defense is an essential feature of liberty. We believe private gun ownership provides far more benefits to society than harm. And many of us believe that taking our guns by force is a line that we can not allow to be crossed. Once the government takes away a fundamental right, you will never get it back. And the left believes none of this. Which is why they are so flippant about allowing the government to disarm the citizenry for even the chance of a small benefit. It is quite easy to give up something you don’t actually value.
Ever since COVID, it feels like the global left has dramatically increased the push to advance their agenda. Clearly, they saw the lockdowns and the unprecedented power governments wielded over their citizenry as a sign that a new world order could be imposed without invoking too much of a backlash. The left now feels empowered to remake the entire world according to their vision. Biden even adopted the Build Back Better slogan that encapsulates this idea for his campaign. Disarming the hoi polloi is obviously a mandatory step to enacting their Great Reset. Even I am not cynical enough to think that is the only reason for the Democrats big push for gun bans. The tragedy in Texas affected us all. Our common desire to prevent future senseless tragedies is genuine. But the global political landscape is a backdrop that reinforces the left’s push to change the parameters of the gun debate. The left feels emboldened to try and make radical changes to society that would have been unthinkable just a couple of years ago. Yet they feel their window is closing. In the coming months, the 2nd Amendment is going to be attacked like never before. We must be ready and steel our resolve in it’s defense.