Okay – the answer to the title question is probably “both”.
I read an article at the Eurasia Review this afternoon, titled Time To Ban Automatic Weapons Of Any Kind From High Population Density Areas – OpEd.
The title alone is a problem/head scratcher, but the contents are even more so.
Let’s start with the author.
Rahul D. Manchanda, Esq, was ranked among Top Attorneys in the United States by Newsweek Magazine in 2012 and 2013. Manchanda worked for one of the largest law firms in Manhattan where he focused on asbestos litigation. At the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (“UNCITRAL”) in Vienna, Austria, Mr. Manchanda was exposed to international trade law, arbitration, alternative dispute resolution, and comparisons of the American common law with European civil law.
NOTE: This is a self-written bio. His law firm is bankrupt, I believe, and his FB profile says he is now an “Anti-Corruption/ Human Rights/ Anti-War Activist/ Civil Rights Lawyer”.
Here is the photo that heads the OpEd:
M249 light machine gun. Source: Wikipedia Commons
If you believe his bio, Mr. Manchanda is a well-educated man, and he’s supposedly a highly ranked attorney. Yet he doesn’t seem to know that automatic weapons have been effectively banned in the United States for decades. More likely, he doesn’t want the people reading this OpEd to know that fact.
The photo heading the article is a fully automatic weapon that is manufactured in Belgium, and by FN Manufacturing LLC in South Carolina for use by our military. There IS a semi-automatic version of this weapon, M249S, that is manufactured in such a way (welded internal components) that it cannot be converted (at least not easily) to an automatic weapon.
Some facts (thank you NRA):
The National Firearms Act of 1934 requires that before a private citizen may take possession of a fully-automatic firearm he must pay a $200 tax to the Internal Revenue Service and be approved by the Treasury Department to own the firearm, which is registered to the owner with the federal government.
In 1968, Congress approved the Gun Control Act (P.L. 90-618), a provision of which [18 U.S.C. 925(d)(3)] is interpreted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to prohibit the importation of fully-automatic firearms for sale to civilians.
In 1986, to reaffirm Congress’s intent in passing the GCA and prevent improper law enforcement by BATF, Congress approved the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA). BATF interpreted an amendment of that act as a prohibition on the civilian possession of any fully-automatic firearm manufactured after May 19, 1986. The effect of the interpretation has been to “freeze” the number of privately owned fully-automatic firearms at roughly 150,000, an exact figure being unavailable due to privacy protection requirements that apply to tax-based laws such as the National Firearms Act.
The crime-fighting utility of the 1986 “freeze” was questionable, since no legal, civilian-owned fully-automatic firearm had been used to commit a violent crime. BATF’s director at the time, Stephen Higgins, had testified before Congress in 1986 that the misuse of legally-owned fully-automatic firearms was “so minimal as not to be considered a law enforcement problem.”
Mr. Manchanda’s Opinions
Mr. Manchanda makes a number of suggestions for new laws. I won’t list them all here (see link for complete information), but a couple of them are outrageous:
- there should no longer be a distinction between “semi- automatic” versus “automatic” and “assault weapons” since these weapons can be easily altered/converted into one or another.
- specific federal lawsuit legislation, criminal penalties, and legal causes of action should be enacted by Congress and the Senate against any and all facilities and executives (hotels, stadiums, etc) which have been found to have either housed or enabled sick demented killers like Steven Paddock from storing weapons or launching their mass killings … in order to help bankrupt those entities which made it easier for these fiends to commit their crimes – this will undoubtedly help increase private security and reporting mechanisms in order to protect themselves from mass lawsuits, incarceration, and financial ruin.
- automatic weapon registration with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in all 50 states, including where automatic weapons possession/sales are banned.
- new federal legislation against weapons manufacturers and sellers when their weaponry is found to have been used in a mass shooting, similar to the ITAR and AECA rules promulgated by the U.S. State Department punishing anyone (brokers, dealers, sellers, manufacturers) who was linked to weapons falling into the hands of international terrorist “end users,” regardless of whether or not their initial customers were law abiding individuals/entities.
My response:
Of the 91 American mass shootings catalogued by Mother Jones that have occurred since 1982, not one has seen the use of a fully automatic machine gun. It’s semi-automatic rifles—guns that reload automatically but fire only once per trigger pull—that have seen wide use in recent mass shootings and that probably constitute the majority of rifles used in homicides and other crimes. Still, rifles of all kinds constitute a small minority of criminally used guns: Only 2 percent of homicides were committed with rifles of any kind (2014 statistics).
A really good OpEd about gun control is (of all places) in The Washington Post:
I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise.
Written by Leah Libresco, a statistician and former newswriter at FiveThirtyEight, a data journalism site. Some of what she says:
- I researched the strictly tightened gun laws in Britain and Australia and concluded that they didn’t prove much about what America’s policy should be. Neither nation experienced drops in mass shootings or other gun related-crime that could be attributed to their buybacks and bans. Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress. And in both Australia and Britain, the gun restrictions had an ambiguous effect on other gun-related crimes or deaths.
- When I looked at the other oft-praised policies, I found out that no gun owner walks into the store to buy an “assault weapon.” It’s an invented classification that includes any semi-automatic that has two or more features, such as a bayonet mount, a rocket-propelled grenade-launcher mount, a folding stock or a pistol grip. But guns are modular, and any hobbyist can easily add these features at home, just as if they were snapping together Legos.
- As for silencers — they deserve that name only in movies, where they reduce gunfire to a soft puick puick. In real life, silencers limit hearing damage for shooters but don’t make gunfire dangerously quiet. An AR-15 with a silencer is about as loud as a jackhammer. Magazine limits were a little more promising, but a practiced shooter could still change magazines so fast as to make the limit meaningless.
- As my co-workers and I kept looking at the data, it seemed less and less clear that one broad gun-control restriction could make a big difference.
- By the time we published our project, I didn’t believe in many of the interventions I’d heard politicians tout. I was still anti-gun, at least from the point of view of most gun owners, and I don’t want a gun in my home, as I think the risk outweighs the benefits. But I can’t endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them. Policies that often seem as if they were drafted by people who have encountered guns only as a figure in a briefing book or an image on the news.
The statistics that were developed as a result of FiveThirtyEight’s research can be found HERE – Gun Deaths In America. Basic facts from their research:
- About two-thirds of gun deaths in the USA are suicides (mostly middle-aged men).
- About a third of gun deaths are homicides; half of those are young men, ages 14-34, 2/3 of whom are black. Homicide includes deaths by both assault and legal intervention (primarily shootings by police officers).
- A very small number are women (1,700 of 33,000), many in domestic violence incidents.
- A very tiny number of gun deaths are either accidents or undetermined in cause.
- Before this week’s mass shooting in Las Vegas, there were 22 deaths and 8 injuries from mass shootings in the US in 2017. See the Mother Jones database of public mass shootings since 1982.
A word about semi-automatic firearms
Since 1989, “gun control” supporters have tried to trick the public into believing that semi-automatic firearms are fully automatic, and that their sales were unregulated. In his State of the Union address on Jan. 24, 1995, President Clinton copied the style of exaggeration used by President Roosevelt 60 years earlier against fully-automatic firearms, claiming the “assault weapon” law was needed to protect people from a “hail of assault-weapon attack.” Campaigning in New Hampshire in February 1996, Clinton said the law was necessary so “people can’t be sprayed innocently while they’re walking up and down the block.”
Network television news groups have shown video footage of machine guns being fired while reporting on semi-automatic firearms issues. Anti-gun activists have said, preposterously, that it is easier to buy an “assault weapon” than a gallon of milk.
For the facts about semi-automatic firearms, including statistics from state and local law enforcement agencies showing that so-called “assault weapons” are used in a very small percentage of violent crimes, see the NRA’s “Semi-Automatic Firearms” fact sheet, available by phone request (1-800-392-8683).
In just a brief search today, I’ve seen a lot of pontificating consisting primarily of ignorance and lies. How much is the former and how much is the latter depends on the author, but the impression I got is that the NRA is absolutely correct. Gun control supporters are trying to trick the public. One CNN article I read (I can’t find it now) said that since the “Assault Weapons Ban” expired in 2004, gun deaths have skyrocketed. Now, mass shootings may be up, but violent crime of all types, including murder, is definitely down, in comparison to the number of guns in civilian hands.
Then there are all of the Hollywood celebs crying and shouting and rending their clothes on television, radio and social media. I have just one comment:
Stella's Place 
The leftists pushing gun control are ideological descendants of the leftists in Russia and China that slaughtered 100 million of their own defenseless citizens.
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There’s no room for facts in agenda-driven propaganda. Left has been trying to get gund outlawed, except for their own, in the US for decades. Communists used illegal guns to help win the Russian Revolution and then made sure the same people they allegedly were protecting made sure they couldn’t have firearms to protect themselves against the benign Red government.
Ditto the UN, they have two huge anti-gun sculptures at the NY headquarters and have worked diligently to ensure no one anywhere has guns except for governments and, of course, the UN has the say-so in how they are used. A building full of heavily 3rd world kleptarchs who represent countries whose residents live off of UN handouts and things they poke out of holes with a pointed stick will be telling us how and what to do. Uh huh…
China’s also hypocritically and heavily coming out for gun control in the US. I say ironically as not only has China manufactured civilian AK-47s, M-14 clones, .45 auto pistols and other firearms – not to mention tons and tons of ammunition – for the US civilian market. They also were caught TWICE trying to ship containers full of illegal fully-automatic weapons into the US.
And on a practical note, where’s that Billary political machine gonna get the tools to solve inconvenient political issues if we ban guns?
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Great post, Stella. 🙂
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TRUCK CONTROL: LAST YEAR A MUSLIM KILLED MORE PEOPLE WITH A TRUCKTHAN IN VEGAS
October 4, 2017 – Daniel Greenfield
http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/268058/truck-control-last-year-muslim-killed-more-people-daniel-greenfield
TRUCK CONTROL, IT ONLY HAPPENS HERE AND OTHER GUN CONTROL MYTHS
4 mass shooting myths exposed.
October 5, 2017 – Daniel Greenfield
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268065/truck-control-it-only-happens-here-and-other-gun-daniel-greenfield
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P.S. Excellent post, Stella. Great to have the info on the laws in one article for future use. Thanks!
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YES.
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Great info, Stella, thank you. Information/knowledge is the best weapon.
Tusc Cty sheriff’s office auctioned off their 1930s machine gun last month for $100k. Regularly shot, cleaned, and maintained, purchased legally. That is how it is done for true collectors.
Making a weapon from a 3-D printer has been around for a few years now. Ban 3-D printing? Any local yocal with a knack for tooling can make their own bumper whatsits. These Congress people are so out-of-touch, it leaves one speechless.
As to your question – the Congress critters talk, act and vote ignorant, so, whichever applies.
Ban the psycho-logists. They have yet to predict any true psycho/sociopaths, Dr. Robert Hare notwithstanding.
Keep the guns.
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Hillary wants you disarmed. Do you trust her?
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Trust Hillary? Never. Personally, I could care less what Hillary wants.
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“Making a weapon from a 3-D printer has been around for a few years now. Ban 3-D printing?”
Well, to comment in reverse; there was talk a couple of years ago about controlling who in the general public had which type of 3D printer. I’m not sure what happened with that. Most 3D printers available for home/hobbyist can’t work with the materials that could withstand the forces of discharging a cartage. Using a home “printed” pistol, a person would only lose a hand if they were lucky. The machines that could print a whole firearm that actually functioned as intended would be more a manufacturing item that would be in the six figure price range or more. One of those also requires specific knowledge of operation and knowledge of the materials being used. Kind of like a machinist or tool and die operator that has years or experience.
It’s not realistic that some 12 year old is going to download CAD/CAM drawings and print out a functional weapon to take to show and tell.
The hoopla a couple of years ago, as I recall, was from a group/company that were experimenting with a couple of hobby printer generated replacement parts that could be used on an existing rifle, but after much experimentation, what they called a success, was something that could be used a limited amount of times before havening to be replaced. I think it was only 3 or 5 rounds could be fired before the part was useless.
I also recall the group got their firearms license yanked for putting the files out on the internet.
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Your points are well-taken and yes, most of those pistols were only good for 3-5 shots, a few years ago. Prob is, technology improves exponentially over time – there is some name for it. My belief has always been that, for every virus or encryption, there is always someone just a wee bit better who will crack it, followed by the next virus/encryption. In time, someone will find a way around any ban placed on these things. That does not mean some regulation should not be written. Just write it with an eye to the future and human ingenuity and innovation. The only constant in the universe is change. Except the Lord, of course.
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In this case, it’s not high technology that is the limiting factor. It’s physical limitations of materials. But then again, I’m only arguing about printing a gun. Malaysia has a cottage industry of making guns. No IT/High/internet technology is involved. Malaysia has strict gun laws by the way.
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You might be a useful idiot if:
You advocate for gun control
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“A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.”
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
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And Uncle Joe is just one of them. Amazingly, he (and they) believe what they’re saying. sheesh.
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LOL
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Wait didn’t good ol’ looney Joe tell his wife if she thought a prowler was on their estate she should go out on the front porch and pump their shotgun and the prowler would suddenly turn into a boycott and walk rapidly off their property?
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The higher ups in the grab your guns and stomp on the Second Amendment are intentionally misleading the public the minions are simply responding to Pavlov’s bell.
I once told a gun control fanatic that gun is an intimate object. Things did not go well.
Great article Stella.
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My first thought when I heard that the bump (or whatever they are called) were allowed by Obama’s people was “Why.” You know he doesn’t give a carp about blind people or anyone. The only answer I can come up with is that he wanted to make them available to the illegals, of all kinds, from all places, to acquire to cause more damage to our country.
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inanimate* Not intimate.
Good grief.
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September’s body count in Chicago matches that of the Vegas fish-in-a-barrel.
http://heyjackass.com/
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https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/74n2co/how_the_average_liberal_envisions_gun_control/
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Reminds me of:
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I feel that we lose no matter what we say, and as long as the Congress is in charge of the gun laws, what we say as Americans do not matter.😯 Just saying. Have a great weekend!
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While only a fool would not sympathize with the families of the fallen victims of these heinous acts of violence, using them as a platform to promote a call for gun control is just patently absurd. Let me just ask you this…are the deaths of innocent people at the hands of drunk drivers any less tragic than the deaths of the innocent people in Las Vegas? Why then do we not call for the immediate ban and restriction on the sale of motor vehicles throughout the US? After all, those drunks couldn’t have killed anybody without the car. Of course, that is absurd. It’s just as absurd as calling for gun control because disturbed people use them to kill. If they didn’t have the gun, don’t you think they would google themselves a recipe for making pipe bombs? Car bombs? Do you really think for a minute that if there weren’t even a single gun available illegally that these people would not still kill indiscriminately? Of course they would. That’s why this argument is foolish. We as Americans should seek instead to promote better treatment for people who exhibit symptoms of mental illness and overt irrationality.
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