johnrlott
Dr. John Lott and Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) have a brand new piece at Newsweek about Biden’s continuous push to ban semi-automatic handguns, by far probably the most generally owned handguns within the US.
Reality-checkers maintain assuring Individuals that President Biden doesn’t wish to ban weapons, however merely needs “cheap” gun laws. But judging by the president’s rhetoric, Biden both doesn’t know a lot about weapons (a regarding chance given his fixed push for extra laws) or is looking for an entire ban on the overwhelming majority of weapons bought within the U.S.
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Simply final Thursday, when Biden spoke in New York Metropolis about combatting gun crime—not the 92 percent of violent crime that has nothing to do with guns—he targeted on handguns. A “Glock with 40 rounds—{a magazine} with 40 rounds. And it’s actually a weapon of conflict,” he said. “However I don’t see any rationale to why there ought to be such a weapon capable of be bought.”
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And at a CNN city corridor final yr, Biden remarked, “The concept you want a weapon that may have the power to fireplace 20, 30, 40, 50, 120 pictures from that weapon—whether or not it’s a 9-millimeter pistol or whether or not it’s a rifle—is ridiculous. I’m persevering with to push to eradicate the sale of these issues.”
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At a high-dollar non-public fundraiser in Seattle in 2019, Biden asked, “Why ought to we enable individuals to have military-style weapons together with pistols with 9-mm bullets and might maintain 10 or extra rounds?”
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These statements implicate a far wider vary of weapons than the information media lets on. Any semi-automatic gun, whether or not it’s a handgun or rifle, “can maintain” or has the “capability” to carry {a magazine} of just about any capability. The truth is, the overwhelming majority of handguns bought on this nation are semi-auto handguns. In 2018, almost 3.9 million semi-automatic handguns had been manufactured within the U.S., in comparison with lower than 700,000 revolvers. So, about 85 p.c of all handguns made had been semi-automatics that “can maintain” magazines.
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Reality-checkers at PolitiFact have twice claimed that journal limits would solely have an effect on sure gun fashions. Different information media, corresponding to USA Today, have additionally dismissed the declare Biden needs to ban handguns. Final yr, Jon Greenberg with Politifact asserted that the favored Sig Sauer P365 wouldn’t be banned as a result of “The usual journal for the P365 is 10 rounds, and relying on the mannequin, the weapon can accommodate a 15-round journal.”
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Whereas it’s true that this pistol collection comes customary with a 10- or non-obligatory 15-round journal, it could actually additionally accommodate magazines of bigger capability—together with 50-round magazines. Biden retains speaking about weapons that “can maintain” bigger magazines—however all of those semi-automatic weapons “can maintain” them.
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Although Glock sells an non-obligatory journal that “can maintain” 33 rounds, at least the 11 most popular Glock models have customary magazines holding lower than 20 rounds. Glock doesn’t make {a magazine} that holds the 40 rounds Biden mentions, however that doesn’t forestall individuals from buying larger-capacity magazines.
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{A magazine} is a field with a spring and a follower or information. It’s simple to make and just about inconceivable to cease criminals from acquiring. Biden’s 1994 assault weapons ban outlawed magazines holding greater than 10 rounds, however this had no impact on crime charges. Even analysis paid for by the Clinton administration couldn’t doc that the assault weapons ban reduced any sort of violent crime or had any impact on mass public shootings.
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PolitiFact got here to Biden’s protection as soon as once more when the previous vp’s speak at a 2019 non-public marketing campaign occasion leaked to the press. Ignoring what Biden stated in non-public to huge marketing campaign donors, PolitiFact dismissed any notion that Biden needed to ban semi-automatic handguns, saying “There isn’t a point out of banning any sort of conventional handgun on Biden’s presidential marketing campaign web site.”
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Semi-automatic weapons present crucial self-defense advantages. If law-abiding victims had been compelled to depend on single-shot weapons, they may discover themselves in bother. In the event that they face a number of criminals, or hearth and miss their goal, people could not have the time wanted to manually reload their gun.
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A recent Gallup poll exhibits 40 p.c of Democrats wish to ban all handguns. Equally telling is a brand new Rasmussen Reports Survey that exhibits Democrats assist a nationwide gun registry by a two-to-one margin, whereas Republicans oppose it by an analogous margin. Two-thirds of Republicans consider a nationwide gun registry will result in confiscation of all weapons, and even 40 p.c of Democrats consider the identical. The prospect of firearm confiscation is actual and never merely a right-wing conspiracy concept.
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The truth is, the Biden administration has already compiled a nationwide gun registry that accommodates a searchable digital database of 866 million firearm transactions. Fifty-four million of those transactions had been made in 2021 alone.
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Federal regulation explicitly prohibits the federal government from maintaining background examine data for greater than 24 hours. That is designed exactly to forestall the creation of a federal firearms registry. However now, authorities brokers can merely sort a law-abiding particular person’s identify into a pc and see what weapons they personal.
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A ban on the overwhelming majority of handguns and rifles doesn’t quantity to “cheap” regulation, and Individuals know that. Democrats and their supporters within the media obscure their true intentions—as a result of a few of them do not forget that Biden’s 1994 gun management invoice led to Democrats shedding their 42-year-long majority.
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Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention Analysis Heart and the creator most just lately of “The Battle on Weapons.” Massie represents Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District and is co-chairman of the Second Modification Caucus.
