The Feinstein Gun Grab

Sen. Dianne Feinstein will be introducing 'gun control' legislation in January. She is using the excuse of Sandy Hook to introduce legislation that is jaw dropping in its breadth. I have yet to read the text of the bill, but the write up Feinstein provides describes vast regulation of weapons of all sorts. Indeed, it would appear to reach virtually all semi-automatic rifles and hand-guns, since virtually all use detachable magazines.

Following is a summary of the 2013 legislation:

• Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
• 120 specifically-named firearms
• Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
• Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds
• Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
• Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test
• Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test
• Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans
• Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds. 
• Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
• Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment
• Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes and
• Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons
• Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
• Background check of owner and any transferee;
• Type and serial number of the firearm;
• Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
• Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
• Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration

I have recently concluded that our modern left is every bit as totalitarian as were Stalin and Mao, the only difference being that they are constrained to acting incrementally in our nation.  I see now that I was wrong.  Feinstein's rather incredible attempt to disarm the law abiding is anything but incremental.

And do note the extreme irony.  Feinstein is promoting this as a response to Sandy Hook.  The shooter in that massacre had 20 minutes of free fire time once in the "gun free zone" and before police arrived.  He could have used virtually any weapon still allowed under Feinstein's regulation to accomplish the same amount of carnage.  This isn't legislation responsive to Sandy Hook, it's legislation solely aimed at the law abiding.


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The Total Futility Of An Assault Weapons Ban In Light Of Sandy Hook (Updated)

In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, President Obama, responding to clarion calls from the left, has vowed to enact meaningful gun control legislation. For her part, Senator Diane Feinstein "has said she intends to introduce a new ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines on the first day of the next Congress in January."

What is an "assault weapon?" I am sure everyone has some - necessarily vague - idea. The term "assault weapon," as defined by the the law passed in 1994 and which expired in 2004, meant nothing more than a weapon with certain cosmetic characteristics - characteristics that scared progressives whose sole apparent familiarity with them came through watching action movies. PJM has up an excellent post on just how ridiculous the 1994 "assault weapon" ban actually was, and in particular, with a visual that says it all:

This gun, an AR15, was banned as an assault rifle:

This gun, the same in all relevant respects, was not banned.

The difference between the two weapons - the one on the bottom did not have a bayonet mount or a flash suppressor. So what defined an "assault weapon" was not ballistic characteristics, but pure cosmetics. Not surprisingly, the "assault weapons ban" had zero impact on gun crime.

And for the record, note that "a 2001 Justice Department study revealed that fewer than 2% of State and Federal inmates used, carried, or possessed a military-style semi-automatic gun or a fully automatic gun during their current offense." In other words, the push to ban guns that scared progressives was both ineffective and unwarranted.

That said, the fact that an AR15 knock-off was used in the Sandy Hook massacre does not mean, on the facts of that case, that banning the single most popular weapon in the United States for hunting, self defense and target shooting would in any way have prevented the tragedy. The relevant facts are:

1. The shooter was insane, and our mental health laws make the institutionalization and forced treatment of such individuals very difficult, if not impossible. Indeed, perhaps the defining characteristic of most mass murders is that the perpetrator is mentally ill. The starting point for any national action in the wake of Sandy Hook should begin with an examination of our mental health laws.

2. The shooter had 20 minutes of free fire time once he entered the school and until police arrived, whereupon he committed suicide. As former police officer Mike McDaniel points out at PJM, that type of response time is hardly unusual. With 20 minutes, the shooter could have used virtually any type of firearm and have accomplished the same degree of carnage. Indeed, one can imagine that, if the shooter had used, say, a pump action shotgun in the close confines of the school and with massed targets, the carnage may even have been worse.

3. The only thing that could have actually stopped this shooter before he massacred 26 women and children would have been other people with weapons at the point of attack. We are heralding the principal of Sandy Hook and others who lunged towards the shooter in an effort to stop him. They are dead. We are heralding a teacher who hid her students. She was murdered. We as a nation should prefer to be heralding these people as living heroes, one of whom ended the massacre by killing the shooter. The only rational course of action in the wake of Sandy Hook is to end gun free zones and allow schools to arm some of their staff per reasonable requirements. (Update 2: According to the latest Gallup Poll, more Americans support arming school staff than more gun control laws.) It is not to enact a ludicrous ban on weapons that scare progressives.

Update 1: From Instapundit - REMINDER: Sen. Dianne Feinstein Has Concealed Carry Permit. Well, sure, because her life is important. Not like yours.

Related Posts:

- When Seconds Counted At Sandy Hook, Police Were Twenty Minutes Away

- St. Louis Police Chief Calls for Arming School Personnel

- John Fund essay on Mass Murders, Gun Control & Our Treatment of Mental Illness

- Luby Cafeteria Massacre, Testimony of Suzanna Hupp, Texas School District Authorizes Concealed Carry For Its Schools

- Reynolds On Gun Free Zones, The Left's Mistrust Of Armed Private Citizens, & Our Problematic Mental Health Laws

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Acts of War by Iran, Acts of Perfidy by the Left

For many of us who are prior military or who have family in the military, little can be more maddening than watching our soldiers attacked in Iraq by neighboring Iran in a proxy war while we do nothing to force a halt to their actions. Possibly the only thing approaching that in frustration is the left wing media and State Dept. officials who spin for Iran, and the Democrats in Congress whose mantra of "taking care of our soldiers" is so bereft of any true substance as to be a mockery. As I posted here, we are finally seeing indications of preperation for the use of force against Iran. And that has sent the NYT others on the far left into a fierce rearguard action.

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The NYT leads today with an effort in agenda journalism - Questions Linger On Scope Of Iran's Threat To Iraq - aimed at undercutting the justification for the use of force against Iran.

The United States has gathered its most detailed evidence so far of Iranian involvement in training and arming fighters in Iraq, officials say, but significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement and the threat it poses to American and Iraqi forces.

Didn't we just hear our two top officials in Iraq say that Iran was the single greatest threat to Iraqi stability and U.S. troops in Iraq today? Apparently, the NYT has not willingly suspended its disbelief.

We have some two hundred soldiers dead just from Iranian supplied IEDS, and hundreds of others wounded and maimed. Our forces and the Iraqi Parliament in the Green Zone are coming under daily attack from Iranian rockets and mortars. We have captured numerous Qods force operatives and high level Hezbollah agents in Iraq, and have a very full picture of how they are training and directing forces against the U.S. Until two weeks ago, Basra, the economic center of Iraq, was more a part of Iran than Iraq. There seems no uncertainty of the threat Iran to the Iraqi Shia. More than 300,000 of them in southern Iraq petitioned their government in November to battle the Iranian scourge:

The Iranians, in fact, have taken over all of south Iraq," said a senior tribal leader from the south who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life. "Their influence is everywhere."

. . . [T]he petition organizers said many citizens are fiercely opposed to Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs.

. . . "The most painful stab in the back of the Shiites in Iraq by the Iranian regime has been its shameful abuse of Shiite religion to achieve its ominous end," the sheiks said a statement. "The only solution and hopeful prospect for Iraq, and in particular the southern provinces, is the eviction of the Iranian regime from our homeland."

Read the entire article. The only uncertainty about the threat Iran poses seems to be among the far left and our MSM.

So how could the NYT justify this uncertainty? Why, with quotes from several anonymous sources - and Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Some intelligence and administration officials said Iran seemed to have carefully calibrated its involvement in Iraq over the last year, in contrast to what President Bush and other American officials have publicly portrayed as an intensified Iranian role.

. . . Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California who has called for opening talks with Iran, said that while she believed that there was evidence that Iran was aiding Shiite militias, she worried about the tenor of the administration’s latest warnings.

“This is not a new thing,” she said of Iran’s involvement. “Why all of a sudden do the sabers start to rattle?”

This is amazing. One, it conflicts with the clear statement of General Petraeus, who presumably is in the single best position to make this assessment. Two, after the highly politicized canard produced by our intelligence agencies in the December, the NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons programs, I am not inclined to credit any weight to an anonymous intelligence source. Three, if you look at what the NYT has written and the position of Senator Feinstein, they are not contesting that Iran is conducting a proxy war in Iraq. Rather, they are suggesting that the murder and maiming of our soldiers at the current level, whatever that maybe, is acceptable. It leaves me near speechless.

Let me give the NYT and others on the left a big hint. Taking care of our soldiers doesn't mean putting them in permanent garrisons in the U.S. Keeping our soldiers out of war is not "taking car of our soldiers." That is their mission, though it is a decision that should only be taken with great caution. Rather, taking care of our soldiers means that when they are committed to a war, making damn sure that our government does everything possible to allow for force protection. That means that the only acceptable level of casualties from the acts of Iran are zero. And it means that if Iran is causing American casualties, they should be paying an impossibly high price for their actions.

To continue:

Iran . . . has shifted tactics to distance itself from a direct role in Iraq since the American military captured 20 Iranian operatives inside Iraq in December 2006 and January 2007. Ten of those Iranians remain in American custody.

Since then, Iran seems to have focused instead on training Iraqi Shiite fighters inside Iran, though the exact number remains unclear. . . .

Surely the NYT is not suggesting that Iran is not funding nor arming these proxy forces, in addition to training them. Apparently, the point the NYT is making is that the Iranians are simply not exercising direct control over the day to day targeting of these groups. To the NYT, that distinction without a difference is apparently important. One wonders if there is a single reporter or editor at the NYT with military experience or with relatives serving now in Iraq. If there were, I seriously doubt that agenda journalism like this would be tolerated.

I can see the reasons for not responding to Iran's provications in the past, given the unsettled problems in Iraq. Those problems are now resolving. And Iran needs to be next in our sights.

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