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New Study Delivers a Kill Shot to Another Anti-Gun Narrative
townhall.com ^ | 7/10/2021 0300 hrs EDT | Matt Vespa

Posted on 07/10/2021 9:58:05 AM PDT by rktman

Well, we once again have new data that shreds the anti-gun Left and their narrative about firearm-related violence during the COVID pandemic. Some nine million Americans became new gun owners. That’s huge. Gun sales are through the roof. Once again, Joe Biden and the Democrats show they’re expert gun salespersons. With the Biden administration aiming to tweak the ATF regulation of pistol stabilizing braces, you can bet the rush to stock up has only intensified. This rule would put 10-40 million Americans in legal jeopardy. There is no grandfather clause. All firearms targeted with this new regulation must either be registered or turned over. it’s the largest gun confiscation and registration effort ever. It’s the groundwork for the mass confiscation effort anti-Gun Democrat lust for, they’re just waiting for expanded background checks to build a national database, but I digress.

New data shows that there is no relation to the spike in gun violence with the increase in gun sales (via The Guardian):

(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 2a; banglist; kaba
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To: MileHi

should read “some 9 million new guns were sold”


21 posted on 07/10/2021 10:35:31 AM PDT by bdfromlv (Leavenworth hard time)
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To: ctdonath2

Umm. No.
Braces have been around for quite some time.
Modern AR braces, about 12 years now.
Every single tech opinion clearly stated/states that when used as reviewed, incidental use on the arm, chest thigh or gasp, even shoulder, does make the system a SBR.

The critical piece used to be whether or not the accessory was designed or intended for use from the shoulder. The exploitation as you label it. As if that would make it darker and more evil... Irrational minds at work. Congress asleep at the wheel.

Now, the proposed criteria is much less objective than before.

The goal of ATF is to make everything unacceptable.


22 posted on 07/10/2021 10:36:59 AM PDT by Manly Warrior (US ARMY (Ret), "No Free Lunches for the Dogs of War" )
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To: rktman

If their mantra about stopping violence had any basis in truth, they would require every US Attorney to prosecute every felon under 922 who got caught with a gun, period. The statute when liberally applied can rope in just about any felon using a gun.


23 posted on 07/10/2021 10:37:52 AM PDT by Mouton (The enemy of the people is the media.)
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To: Manly Warrior

Does NOT make an SBR...


24 posted on 07/10/2021 10:38:21 AM PDT by Manly Warrior (US ARMY (Ret), "No Free Lunches for the Dogs of War" )
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To: MileHi

Well except for the safeguards put in place to keep them from retaining a record of who bought what. 😂😂😂😂😂🙌 I crack my self up sometimes.


25 posted on 07/10/2021 10:39:17 AM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this?)
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To: rktman
Interesting to see this written up in the Guardian.
26 posted on 07/10/2021 10:40:31 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: rktman

It’s apples and oranges. We talk about public safety when the goal of gun control is the acquisition of power and punishment of thought criminals. Every cause the left promotes is a ruse to cover their real end game, which is total subjugation of their political opponents. All of these special interest groups, ethnic minorities, assorted sexual deviants, illegals, women, abuse victims, convicts and all the rest will be sorely disappointed when we have only one political party, and then it will be too late.


27 posted on 07/10/2021 10:41:54 AM PDT by Spok (There are many more things that frighten us than can cause us harm.)
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To: bdfromlv
That's not correct.

Far more than nine million were sold in the year and a half since the covid pandemic began. Over four million guns were sold in Jan. '21, again in Feb. and again in March. That is over 12 million in those three months alone.

Biden’s COVID Relief Checks Help Spur Another Record Month of AR-15 Sales April 1 2021

28 posted on 07/10/2021 10:47:09 AM PDT by TigersEye (Who shot Ashli Babbitt?)
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To: Manly Warrior

Of late, most purchases and use of stabilizing braces was precisely to create rifles with short barrels which were legal only because of a semantic between “intent of design” vs “intent of use”. While I applaud the malicious obedience achieving freedom to bypass infringement, it’s annoying that such word games are played by our side in a way assured to lose.

Feel free to follow up this by using the sales figures of stabilizing braces to demonstrate “in common use” in a court case intended to remove short barreled rifles from NFA restrictions.


29 posted on 07/10/2021 10:55:26 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (All worry about monsters that'll eat our face, but it's our job to ask WHY it wants to eat our face.)
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To: ctdonath2

Are there such stats? If so, the ought to be useful in court.

I’ve heard of “10million”, but not as a fact.

The AATF COULD have denied everysingle one becasue all/any “could be” fired from teh shoulder no matter how short a LOP nor how unsuitable the use would be. Matters ot, the approval letters and AFT back and forth rulings clearly state the “incidental” use from the shoulder does not make an SBR. So, what does? The letter of the law.

Which s rather clear ( even if unconstitutional n most rational minded people), a barrel shorter than 16 (rifle) or 18 (shotgun) and a shoulder stock.

I’ve fired a 450 Bushmaster pistol with a KAK shockwave blade from the shoulder (incidentally of course) and it was not “useful”, now a 556 or similar, and it may be “useful”, but again, the rulings clearly held “incidental or situational” use from the shoulder was not a violation. Just as a long gun, intended to be fired from the shoulder, CAN BE fired from the hands, even though doing so does not make it a “pistol” per the law. Firing your 12 ga pump shotgun from both hands but not the shoulder does not require one to have a license or be in violation of a law regarding pistols, a pox be on the states that require licensing of handguns/ guns period.


30 posted on 07/10/2021 12:14:56 PM PDT by Manly Warrior (US ARMY (Ret), "No Free Lunches for the Dogs of War" )
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To: ctdonath2

There’s a dissatisfying circular argument wrapped up in the “in common use” test for legality: items which are restricted will be largely avoided by most of the general public, e.g. because they don’t want to do the NFA paperwork. This avoidance makes them less “in common use” - which the authorities then seize upon, turn around, and claim that the fact they are not in common use therefore legitimizes and even justifies the ban! But that’s a circular argument, because the lack of common use arose, at least in part, because of the ban.

Circular arguments are terrible foundations upon which to build legislation.


31 posted on 07/10/2021 1:22:09 PM PDT by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
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To: coloradan

This is a rare case where that cycle is broken: given the block (NFA) preventing common use, a loophole was found and exploited by the public to satiate the common demand. We can now subpoena the sales figures for an identifiable specialized product (braces), fairly estimate that only a tiny fraction of those sold were for the “intended purpose” (handicap use), and reasonably conclude that upwards of ~1% of total population acquired it for a singular purpose: constructing what is, for all practical purposes, a short barreled rifle - in quantities that must be considered “common use”.


32 posted on 07/10/2021 2:14:09 PM PDT by ctdonath2 (All worry about monsters that'll eat our face, but it's our job to ask WHY it wants to eat our face.)
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To: ctdonath2

33 posted on 07/10/2021 2:21:51 PM PDT by caww ( )
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To: ctdonath2
...a loophole was found and exploited by the public to satiate the common demand. We can now... reasonably conclude that upwards of ~1% of total population acquired it for a singular purpose: constructing what is, for all practical purposes, a short barreled rifle...

Your posts here seem to ignore several facts. First, pistol braces did not come into common use simply because "the public" found and exploited "a loophole" - the federal government was an active participant in the process. ATF provided written pre-approval for the manufacture and sale of pistol braces, which clearly differentiated between the braces and shoulder stocks.

Second, neither floppy pieces of foam with nylon straps, nor thin pieces of rigid plastic shaped like knife or axe blades, can be reasonably construed to be shoulder stocks - even if they might resemble such stocks from particular angles of view. That is exactly why ATF approved the accessories in the first place.

Finally, you assume that those who purchase braces do so with "a singular purpose: constructing... a short barreled rifle". Obviously, there is no way for you to substantiate that claim; and it could be said with equal fairness that pistols equipped with braces were purchased or constructed because many owners desired 'a long barreled pistol', that could be more safely & precisely controlled via use of a brace. Frankly, the overall tenor of your posts here reminds me of material from Giffords or Handgun Control Inc, or possibly some ATF bureaucrat trying to rationalize that agency's attempted 180 degree turn on the legality of pistol braces...

34 posted on 07/10/2021 4:03:29 PM PDT by Who is John Galt? ("He therefore who may resist, must be allowed to strike." - John Locke)
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To: ctdonath2

That works for me! I suppose bump stocks are another example of trying to get around the circular argument. Which is not to say that the gun grabbers, and, especially those in the F-troop, aren’t trying to exploit the circular argument articulated here.


35 posted on 07/10/2021 5:05:06 PM PDT by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
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To: coloradan

Likewise bump stocks, a product which would not exist but for the ban on machine guns.


36 posted on 07/10/2021 6:05:56 PM PDT by ctdonath2 (All worry about monsters that'll eat our face, but it's our job to ask WHY it wants to eat our face.)
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To: Who is John Galt?

Absurd to impute I’m anti gun, especially in this thread.

I just received my approved Form 1 to legally “SBR” a 12” .308 pistol.

I appreciate your argument. I’m addressing what I earnestly believe is sociopolitical problematic with it. You’re saying the right things, but using them in plainly disingenuous ways.

Yes, braces were intended for legitimate use of powerful heavy pistols - by handicapped or extreme niche shooters. They’re very awkward to use. Few indeed would seriously use such a thing as intended, save for handicap or obscure sport. Possible? Sure. Realistic? No. Except…they fill a legal niche, making SBRs legally accessible. I know, having just spent $230 for the NFA paperwork for one. Would have saved $230 by putting a “pistol brace” on it instead, and, like so many others obviously intended to in such a purchase, used it as a plausibly-deniable shoulder stock.

Show me how many “pistol braces” have been sold, and convince me the bulk of them are dominantly used as design intended.

Sure it makes a poor shoulder stock - but it is good enough for most such uses, by those not inclined to file paperwork, fingerprints, and taxes to do so for a proper stock.

If you’d bother reading another of my posts here, you’d see my suggestion how this loophole fiasco can be turned to eviscerating a major fraction of NFA law - hardly the tactic of gun banners.


37 posted on 07/10/2021 6:38:35 PM PDT by ctdonath2 (All worry about monsters that'll eat our face, but it's our job to ask WHY it wants to eat our face.)
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To: caww

HA! I just stole that to pass on to others. Thanks


38 posted on 07/10/2021 6:54:28 PM PDT by octex
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To: MileHi
Some nine million Americans became new gun owners.

How do we know this?

It is based on a survey conducted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which found, at one point, that 40% of the gun buyers in 2020 were new gun buyers.

I have seen another estimate it was only 4-5 million new gun buyers.

39 posted on 07/11/2021 5:23:54 AM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries. )
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To: ctdonath2
Absurd to impute I'm anti gun, especially in this thread.

You certainly employ a lot of the popular gun-grabber 'buzz words'.

Who talks about "loopholes"? I NEVER hear gun owners use the term. There's the supposed "gunshow loophole", and the "Charleston loophole", and the "boyfriend loophole" - all gun-grabber terms, and all based on the default assumption that people shouldn't be able to buy guns without specific, one person/one gun at a time, government permission.

And who commonly conflates legal weapons with illegal (or nearly impossible to legally own) weapons? That's a basic gun-grabber tactic. They tell us semi-auto AR15's are the same as M4s/M16s; gun owners know they aren't. Gun-grabbers insist that semi-auto AKMs are "weapons of war"; gun owners know there isn't a single military organization on the planet that uses semi-auto AKMs. And you tell us legal handguns with braces are really SBRs; most gun owners know the difference.

Finally, gun-grabbers routinely suggest that gun owners have evil motives for buying firearms (the list of examples is nearly endless). Your repeated suggestions that everyone buying a pistol with a brace is attempting to circumvent federal law sounds awfully similar.

Maybe you just like gun-grabber terminology; or maybe you're an attorney: who knows (or cares). If I exercise my right to keep and bear arms, it has nothing to do with "loopholes". And if I choose to own a pistol equipped with a brace, OR a properly documented SBR, rest assured, I know the difference...

40 posted on 07/11/2021 6:47:03 AM PDT by Who is John Galt? ("He therefore who may resist, must be allowed to strike." - John Locke)
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