What Will Gun Controllers Do When Americans Ignore an ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban?

https://reason.com/archives/2016/06/21/what-will-gun-controllers-do-when-americ

Prohibition was kneecapped by Americans' widespread refusal to stop producing, selling, and drinking booze. Millions of Americans smoked marijuana decades before majority sentiment creeped toward legalizing the stuff. Gays and lesbians not only surreptitiously lived and loved when they were targeted by the law—they also famously (and righteously) stomped cops who raided the Stonewall Inn, ultimately precipitating liberalization. And restrictions on exporting encryption were eased only after cryptographers illegally exported code—even printing it on T-shirts as an act of civil disobedience.

But in the wake of Omar Mateen's bloody rampage in Orlando, gun control advocates think that overcoming the passionate opposition of firearms owners and imposing a ban on a difficult to define class of "assault weapons" is a swell idea whose time has come. This prohibition will somehow be different.
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Gun owners' response is best summarized by one of their more popular slogans of recent years: "Molon labe." Usually translated as "come and take them," .......

That gun owners mean what they say in the "assault weapons" context can be inferred from the 5 percent compliance rate achieved by New York's recent registration requirement for such firearms. Or from the 15 percent compliance rate in neighboring Connecticut.
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That was the gun control laws passed in NY and Connecticut after Sandy Hook. Even in Connecticut where Sandy Hook took place, the gun laws are ignored.

In 1990, even before opposition had become so hardened, California experienced similar resistance to its original restrictions on "assault weapons."

"As a one-year registration period draws toward an end on Dec. 31, only about 7,000 weapons of an estimated 300,000 in private hands in the state have been registered," The New York Times reported.

When New Jersey went a step further and banned the sale and possession of "assault weapons," 947 people registered their rifles as sporting guns for target shooting, 888 rendered them inoperable, and four surrendered them to the police. That's out of an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 firearms affected by the law. The New York Times concluded, a bit drily, "More than a year after New Jersey imposed the toughest assault-weapons law in the country, the law is proving difficult if not impossible to enforce."
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But let's go with it. So, the government somehow defines "assault weapons" in a meaningful way and bans sales of new ones. How is that going to be effective given the millions of disfavored weapons already in circulation? That includes roughly 8 million AR-15-style rifles alone&#8212;out of somewhere north of 300 million firearms in general........

And their numbers will increase, even if commercial production and sales are outlawed. People have been 3D-printing AR-15 lower receivers (the parts legally classified as a firearm) for years. More durable receivers are CNC-milled by hobbyists from partially finished blanks as well as raw blocks of metal. These techniques were developed in anticipation of the laws now proposed, with the specific purpose of rendering them impotent.


So, a United States the morning after, or a year after, or a decade after a successful effort to ban "assault weapons" will not be the scene of the "domestic disarmament" ........... It will be more like Prohibition-era America, but with hidden rifles substituting for stockpiled hooch and 3D printers standing in for moonshiners' stills. And probably a bit more tense.

Those defiant gun owners will also be included in the jury pools chosen to sit in judgement of unlucky violators scooped up by law enforcement. That situation will likely replicate the difficulty prosecutors had in getting convictions of Prohibition scofflaws in the 1920s and marijuana law resisters today. "f juries consistently nullify certain types of criminal charges (charges for possession of a small amount of marijuana, for example), this can render an unpopular law ineffective," wrote John Richards at the LegalMatch blog after a jury couldn't even be seated in Montana​

And if you read the various legislation to ban "assault weapons "proposed over the years, they ban far more than ARs, they ban almost all semi-auto center fire rifles, and many shotguns.

People will not obey the gun banners. And the cops are not going to actively seek out and confiscate firearms - even if 1% of the gun owners fight back (that's 1-1.5 million people fighting back), even if those gun owners are killed in the fight, that's a lot of dead cops. All federal and state law enforcement together do not have the resources to engage in a national or even regional confiscation.

An "assault weapons" ban is a fools errand. If the gun banners were truly interested in public safety and representing the will of the people, they would never entertain the idea of a ban - but then they would not be gun banners, would they?

That tells you all that's important about gun banners.

 

You do have examples in CA, NY and CT. The authorities did nothing. In fact many LEO's refused to enforce the laws. Meanwhile, sales go through the roof. Now EVERYBODY who was thinking about is no longer thinking about it. They're buying. Good work libs.

 

The Obama, et al, seek a ban on the sale and manufacture of new 'assault weapons'; they do not yet seek confiscation of current weapons.

After they achieve this ban, they will require registration of exciting weapons.

After that, if they think they can get away with it politically, they will attempt confiscation of registered weapons.

All of this will be "justified" by the failure of the previous legislation to prevent mass shootings.

 

Yep, a preview of the Big Ban...

 

any new AW ban will allow existing ones to be kept.

 

But with registration and that's not going to happen.

 

The one proposed in the state of Georgia did not. It retroactively reclassified already existing so-called "assault weapons" to be illegal contraband, and authorized law enforcement to seize and destroy them if found.

Even if it were true, it is still a prohibition on an entire class of firearms, that are in common use at the time. The district of columbia attempted to argue that because some people legally owned handguns, there was no constitutional violation with prohibiting others from legally owning handguns. Their argument was rejected.

 

The gun banners ought to go door to door demanding people turn over their banned "assault weapons"

 

Living in fantasy land I see. Do you realize that the first cops that are killed, the government will most likely declare martial law; and all the rules go out the window. And if the cops resist (besides standing to lose their jobs/pensions/benefits) the military becomes involved, it's game over; like really quick. If and when the day comes to where your prophecy comes true, I'm going out and buying some popcorn and beer and watch the gunhuggers get one hell of an ass whooping they'll never forget.

 

Please, that's your fantasy. Many if not most LEO's outside of the cities in NY, CA or CT have already refused to enforce the laws on so called assault weapons. Hell, the feds can't even enforce their own immigration or marijuana laws. Do you think they could enforce the gun laws you fantasize about? Laughable.

 

I see you still cannot read.

I wrote the cops will not try to enforce gun confiscation for the same reasons Connecticut considered it and quickly dropped the idea.

After the deadline for turning in magazines, registering guns etc, and so few people complied, the gun banner zealots in Connecticut (the Hartford Courant newspaper led the way, google for their editorials) started demanding the state police use the NICS background forms held by FFLs to identify gun owners and then go take their firearms. The Connecticut cops immediately said no - they knew some gun owners would fight back, they did not know which ones, so the cops would have to do SWAT type no knock raids, they would have to do all the raids (100,000+ raids) in a very short amount of time or people would take precautions.

Mistakes would be made - the wrong address, accidental killings including killing children, raids to former gun owners who obeyed the law but the paperwork was messed up. After a few mistakes, gun owners would organize - including a lot of gun owners who have spent a little bit of time in that little sandbox overseas learning for real how to fight and be an insurgent. Many cops will die.

And when the fighting starts, people from out of state will wander in to join the fun.

The CONN state police squashed even a hint of confiscation, the governor seconded it.

 

Your reasoning is flawed; you have no idea what would happen if the government at the federal level decided to confiscate guns. Might be some deaths of Feds, but they'd win in the end. Like it or not.

 

Nobody is going to do mass confiscations or perform raids to seize guns or start a civil war. Nobody is really stupid enough despite all the rhetoric to risk a body count many times higher than what we have now to stop the violence we have now... Silly, to stop gun violence, start a civil war...yeah, right. Just like in the states that have moved to such bans, very few comply, and there is no confiscation move by authorities... Because after a ban magically, few of the contraband guns exist anymore and there is no appetite for going looking for them. Then, eventually power shifts, laws change and magically, poof... One banned Guns appear again...

 

Can you provide a tangible senario of that so we can debate it?

At a very simplistic view, they the fed, would lose. They would lose because the outrage of even a few lives lost. The horror on the news every night. The innocents caught in the crossfire. Etc...etc..etc.. The pressure of the people to stop confiscation would deafening roar. No matter the media, in the end, the people would view the feds as the oppersor. People whom where anti gun before, would lose compasion for the cause when they see small children being shot.

 

You don't have any reasoning behind your argument, just fantasy. You can't even come up with any type of explanation. You don't even know the most basic history.

 

Not enforcing immigration and drug laws is key to installing the gun ban. Your reasoning is flawed.

 

They really do have this fantasy, and it's violent all on it's own eh? They always react emotionally, waiting on big brother government to come and rescue them...LOL their savior can't even protect them from Islamic terrorists and murderous illegal immigrants.

 

"What Will Gun Controllers Do When Americans Ignore an ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban?"

depends, could be like the war on drugs... if people want them.. terrorist or not, they could get them, just not as easy as going to the store and buying one

 

LOL they cannot even stop Islamic terrorists and illegal immigrant murderers...good luck getting them to even try mass gun confiscation. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA That is rich!

 

Hell, many of them can't even say the word Islamic terrorist. Many of them can't even fathom that the Orlando shootings was done by an Islamic terrorist or even face the fact.

 

"yet". Give it time.

 

80 million gun owners.
Assume 10% resist confiscation and are killed.
Assume half of them take 2 people with them - assuming the state can find enough LEOs.
16 million dead.

To you, this makes sense.

 

In areas like Chicago, LA, and other cities with highly restrictive gun laws guns already flow in the trade channels along with drugs the drug trade, drug gangs, and the collateral crime associated with the drug trade are already responsible for the bulk of the gun violence in the US. As long as the drug trade is as lucrative as it it there will be little reduction of the associated gun violence.

Gun bans like those in CT, NY, etc. already show the reaction of Americans... They largely ignore the bans even if it means they essentially become defacto criminals. Millions of Americans have a history of ignoring bans, in the prohibition and with illegal drugs a huge segment of otherwise law abiding citizens ignore the law and are the end consumers of those profiting and using violence to protect those profits. They don't follow the fantasy 'if we make something illegal people will follow the law'... Eh, not behind closed doors.

Every time the rhetoric on gun control or the call for bans of various classes of guns escalates so do gun sales. If people think it's the same 2 people buying the guns or that people are buying the very guns that are targeted by the rhetoric are doing so just to obligingly give them up when the guns are banned are in denial. Some people buy more than one and many buy several along with stockpiling ammo; it's not just to stockpile for protection in some future civil collapse, but as an investment as calls for banning weapons drives up the value of guns and ammo and on a black market they will be far more valuable commodities than they are when legally traded...just look at something as benign as .22 cal ammo and the scarcity and prices these days.

The current protests of the Dems in the House is a demonstration of a slight of hand. I head a quote from one hysterical House member saying, 'we have a duty to protect America' as if passing the current proposed legislation will have any real impact other than providing a descretionary means of violating Constitutional rights. What are the real objectives is an attempt to seize the moment in the wake of Orlando

1) to obscure the fact the the policies of the Administration have increased risk to Americans,
2) to create the appearance to those low information voters that the Dems involved are the good guys,
3) to create the impression that the GOP is responsible for gun violence,
4) to deflect from HRC's current legal troubles,

And basically create a red herring issue that will cover other deficiencies in their coming election platform. By staging a revolt 60's style protest on the House floor they hope to create the impression that they are champions trying to protect Americans rather than addressing the underlying issues with hopes that it will bring some of the swing votes to the Dem side in November. In a way, it's taking a page from Trump...do something outlandish, exaggerate, and do it loudly to attract the free press coverage, not unlike Trump.

The Dems have had a great strategy, continually pushing various divisive issues, targeting various special interest groups, creating fear, dividing people along racial, ethnic, gender, class, and other lines with tailored messages to each group and creating a massively polarized population where independents and moderates form that swing vote. That model follows the electoral college vote advantage they hold and the segmenting of interests along with creating an impression of fear toward the GOP along an array of issues will find at least on issue that will influence votes along individual issue lines will carry just enough votes to win. It's not about guns, but part of a successful strategy the Dems have been perfecting for years.

The interesting thing this year is, that HRC could implode depending on investigations as could Trump. Both the established leaderships of the Dems and GOP find themselves in a position of backing ticking time bombs and it's making both increasingly desperate.

Back on target, the current calls for bans will fail. Calls for bans will become part of the Dem platform as HRC has been pushing to do. If she were to win it will be interesting to see if she is successful at creating a new huge criminal class in America.

 

Not to mention those in law enforcement who have outright defied the feds and told them to shove their gun control.

 

Ah the anti-gun crowd, exposing their bloodthirstiness yet again.