The Dubious and Doomed 'Assault Weapon' Ban That the House Approved Today May Cost Democrats This Fall

Reason ^ | 7.29.2022 | JACOB SULLUM

[absalom01]

The House of Representatives today approved H.R 1808, which would ban the production and sale of "assault weapons," including semi-automatic rifles with features such as pistol grips, folding or adjustable stocks, barrel shrouds, and threaded barrels. It also would ban a long list of specific models by name.

The bill, which passed the House by a vote of 217 to 213, has no chance in the evenly divided Senate, where support from at least 10 Republicans would be required to overcome a filibuster. House approval of H.R. 1808 is therefore a symbolic act aimed at energizing Democrats and encouraging them to vote in this fall's elections. But several House Democrats, whose objections nearly derailed today's vote, worried that it would hurt their party's candidates more than it would help them. In the end, five Democrats joined all but two Republicans in voting against the bill.

The fear that today's gesture could alienate more voters than it attracts seems rational given what happened after Congress approved similar legislation in 1994: Democrats lost control of the House and Senate. Polling data provide further reason to think that the House vote to revive the ban, which expired in 2004, could be politically perilous.

  ...

"Last time, we didn't necessarily define 'semi-automatic [assault weapon]' very well," Cooper told Politico. Nor does the new, supposedly improved version of the ban.

Like H.R. 1808, the 1994 ban covered a bunch of listed models, along with "copies" of them. Also like H.R. 1808, it included a more general definition of prohibited rifles, which hinged on the presence or absence of five features: a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a grenade launcher, or a "flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor." ..."

[absalom01]

Well, he’s facing Marisa Wood in the general in November, who is a garden-variety Democrat pol.

This would have been a good year to mount a primary challenge, but there were problems getting credible candidates to run against him, in the re-drawn district.

He’s sketchy, for sure.

[absalom01]

Chris Jacobs NY 27th CD, a suburb of Rochester, and
Brian Fitzpatrick PA 1st CD, suburbs outside of Philly

[Chad C. Mulligan]

The guy who coined the term "assualt weapon", Josh Sugarmann of the "Violence Policy Center" did the left a solid by coming up with the catchy term that actually has no meaning.

He didn't even invent it - he just translated the German word sturmgewehr

[absalom01]

Yeah, I hate to give that toad any credit, but he definitely understood the messaging needed at the time. He’s on record admitting he popularized the term to exploit the public’s confusion about fully-automatic and semi-automatic operation.

Just to further complicate things, this was roughly the same era when Jeff Cooper was loudly pointing out that, in his experience, you didn’t need full auto anyway. He may have gone a bit far with his “Scout” rifle concept, though there are those who continue consider it to be a realistic answer to a very difficult problem.

[freeandfreezing]

It's hard to get gun owners to vote sometimes, but when we perceive that our rights are under active threat, we become the most motivated of voters.

This November every legal gun owner in America should be at the polls on election day with four friends and every voting age member of their family. Every eligible voter should be voting against the Reps who voted yes on this bill.

How each representative voted is Here. If your representative is a Democrat you can save yourself some time, nearly all of them voted to take away your rights.

For those of us in New Hampshire both Kuster and Pappas voted against our 2nd amendment rights and they voted to destroy the jobs of hundreds of New Hampshire workers who depend on Ruger and Sig Sauer for their income. And that's not counting all the subcontractors, machine shops, and other businesses that depend on work from Ruger and Sig Sauer.

Talk to a friend, talk to your neighbors, volunteer to work as a poll watcher, and vote in November.

[Fireone]

“The Dubious and Doomed ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban That the House Approved Today May Cost Democrats This Fall”
If this headline was written in the United States, it should read:
“The unconstitutional scary rifle ban that the House approved today should cost democrats everything this Fall”

[firebrand]

but when we perceive that our rights are under active threat, we become the most motivated of voters.

No weapon forged against us shall prosper, as someone once said in a different context.

[Luke21]

Nobody ever talks about gun grabber Mark Kelly in Arizona. He gets a free ride.

[Howie66]

Frankly, I don’t give a shit who replaces this gutless wonder. Hunter Biden would be a improvement.

[Paal Gulli]

"Assault weapon" is a redundancy because all weapons are made for assaulting. Bows & arrows, daggers, tomahawks, fish-knockers, brass knuckles, ... all assault weapons.

And these doofuses are too bog-ignorant of how firearms work (and in particular what makes them dangerous) to write effective law, witness all the AR-15s on the market (as well as those currently sold in Kommieforia) with little more than cosmetic changes to skirt the law. And that's just a small sample. Franklin Armory, the eternal bane of the gun-grabbers, even makes an AR that isn't semi-auto!

There's no law they can write that can't be skirted, mostly because all they know about guns is that they're afraid of them.

[Celerity]

A lot of these right-wing journalists and commentators are smart folks.

Why do they, we and even those on this site, think that elections matter ?

They haven’t. And not in 2020. No, No democrat wins re-election without cheating.

It doesn’t matter if the people hate them or not. Pelosi has been a representative for CENTURIES and she will never lose - no matter how bad it gets.

Even Lori Lightfoot for god’s sake. She’s like a damned tick. All of the democrats are.

This is not about voting anymore. Hasn’t been for a long, long time.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

“Assault weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over
fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons
—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine
gun— can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on
these weapons.”
– Josh Sugarmann

[Captain Jack Aubrey]

Did you know that a musket is a weapon of war? Did you know that there is not an army in the world that uses an AR 15 as its rifle?

[absalom01]

Sorry, not buying any black pills tonight.

[absalom01]

Why, yes. Yes, I did know that.

[who knows what evil?]

NO chance? Remember the ‘red flag’ vote? The FIFTEEN Republicans who allied with the ‘rats? Never say never.

[absalom01]

Yup. The RINOS need to be primaried. This is not a task for a single year, but for every election year hereafter.

The McConnel/Pense/Mittens wing of the part needs to be sent to Siberia, and new America first pols need to be put in their places.

And then the base needs to monitor these new pols, and eject them when they inevitably turn into traitors.

Rust never sleeps.

[Jim Noble]

“The guy who coined the term “assualt weapon”, Josh Sugarmann of the “Violence Policy Center”

Actually “assault rifle” is the English translation of the German word “sturmgewehr”.

[Organic Panic]

They don’t care if it costs them votes if they can pass it. They know they will get back in to power again and they control the bureaucrats. It is one step closer to their ultimate goal of “disappearing” we deploreable enemies.

[absalom01]

Stipulated. I should have been more precise.

Sugarmann, and his excrable “Violence Policy Center” who popularized the term in the early 90’s when California and then Congress were banning semi-automatic center fire rifles.

“Self loading (semi-automatic) centerfire rifle” just didn’t have the panache that “Assault Weapon” had, and still has.

The VPC have taken a lower profile in recent years, yielding the stage to the newer anti-gun groups, but they continue their practice of generating phony “studies” culled from newspaper accounts then then get recycled and retailed by the corporate media, Democrat pols, and other bad actors.

He frankly deserves more notoriety than he currently recieves.