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| Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid |
Sales of semiautomatic rifles of the AR-15 type, such as the Bushmaster .223-caliber recently used by Adam Lanza in Newtown, CT, to kill 20 schoolchildren and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, ought to be banned by law, but lobbying pushback by the National Rifle Association in the aftermath of Newtown has nixed the deal. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced legislation reinstating the 1994 ban which lapsed in 2004, and it even managed to get out of committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), on March 14 approved Feinstein's bill. But Reid, needing 60 votes to break a Republican filibuster on the Senate floor, said he could get fewer than 40 votes for it.
"Lacking the numbers to overcome a likely Republican filibuster," says an editorial by The Washington Post, "[Reid] was reluctant to force a floor vote that could imperil the reelection prospects of several of his fellow Democrats. Lacking the numbers to overcome a likely Republican filibuster, he was reluctant to force a floor vote that could imperil the reelection prospects of several of his fellow Democrats."
Not exactly a profile in courage, I'd say, Sen. Reid.
So it's dead, for now, at the federal level. Unless someone manages to amend the bill that actually has reached the Senate floor to put the assault weapons ban back in. Fat chance of that happening, though.
How sad.
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| Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley |
That's a bad idea, and a recent editorial from The Baltimore Sun tells why. I think everyone should read it and consider it. It says that
... such weapons show up again and again in mass shootings. According to Mother Jones magazine, which has cataloged every mass shooting in the United States since 1982, about a quarter of all mass shooters had assault weapons, and more than half had assault weapons, high capacity magazines, or both ...
What makes these weapons so deadly? They are civilian copies of military weapons designed with features that make them more lethal.
The AR-15, for example, has a pistol grip, which helps a shooter pull the trigger more quickly and to better control the recoil, allowing him to fire more rapidly with more accuracy. It also enables shooting from the hip and spraying fire from side to side — something that would be deadly when firing into a crowd but useless in a self-defense situation.
When fired rapidly, a gun's barrel can quickly become too hot to handle. A barrel shroud, common on many of the models listed in the governor's bill, enables a shooter to hold the gun with a second hand without burning himself. A forward grip, which is somewhat less common, achieves the same purpose.
A folding, detachable or telescoping stock helps make an assault weapon easier to carry and conceal. That is frequently a factor in mass shooting situations.
A threaded barrel allows the easy attachment of a silencer or a flash suppressor. The latter prevents the shooter from being temporarily blinded by the muzzle flash, particularly in low-light conditions, enabling him to fire more quickly and accurately. It also helps conceal the position of the shooter ...
Yes, the same rifle models are often used legitimately for target shooting and hunting. Yes, some semiautomatic handguns that would not be banned can be just a lethal as the semiautomatic rifles that would. And yes, there are huge numbers of these rifles already out there that will still pose a threat: guns that many potential miscreants will have easy access to if they, as Adam Lanza's slain mother would have done, can but pass a background check.
But banning the sale of new military-style assault weapons, even if that has to be done at the state level only, will save innocent lives. And that's what counts most here.
