Thursday, July 26, 2012

No Room for Gun Control

The recent mass shooting in Aurora, CO have renewed calls for more gun control from the usual suspects.

New York Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Moore, various celebrities, and virtually every leftist talking head have called for new laws and restrictions on the ownership or possession of guns or ammo.

The problem is that there is no room for gun control anymore.

There are only two types of gun control laws: 'small laws' and 'big laws'.

Small laws are the incremental restrictions that try to ban the little things: bayonet lugs, flash hiders, one-gun-per-month, large capacity magazines, armor piercing ammo, and so on.

Large laws are the complete ban of firearms or types on firearms: local gun bans, banning handguns, banning assault weapons, etc. 

Here is the problem for erstwhile gun control fanatics: the small laws don't work, and the big ones have been struck down by the Supreme Court.

The small laws have been tried for decades in various configurations. The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, for example.  All of these laws have had zero effect on crime.  Banning Saturday night specials did not reduce handgun crime at all.  Nor did banning the importation of certain guns, nor restricting teflon coated ammunition. None of it worked to reduce gun crime. 

The big laws were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  The Court held that the Second Amendment meant what it said: there is a right to keep and bear arms.  Therefore all the laws banning the possession of firearms are null and void.  You cannot ban entire classes of weapons, nor can you restrict the ownership of guns. 

So with the small laws proven to be ineffective and the big laws off limits, there is no room left for gun control.

The American public has figured this out, and support for gun control has dropped to post-war record lows.  The voting power of the pro-gun lobby has made gun control measures impossible to pass, and politically lethal for politicians except those ensconced in the most liberal districts.

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