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Op-Ed:
Biden reveals his true goal – to ban most guns
[The Center Square]
John R. Lott Jr. | RealClearWire
If there was any doubt
that President Joe Biden wants to ban the vast majority of guns in the
United States, he again clarified his position last week. “The idea you
need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 40, 50, 120
shots from that weapon – whether it’s a – whether it’s a 9-millimeter
pistol or whether it’s a rifle – is ridiculous,” Biden said at a
televised CNN townhall meeting. “I’m continuing to push to eliminate the
sale of those things, but I’m not likely to get that done in the near
term.” |
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 The president’s gun control proposals will make guns so
expensive and difficult to obtain that only the extremely wealthy will be able
to afford to own one legally. While the news media assures Americans that Biden
just wants “reasonable” regulations, Biden made the scope of his true ambitions
clear during the campaign. At a high-dollar private fundraiser in Seattle in
2019, he said: “Why should we allow people to have military-style weapons,
including pistols with 9-mm bullets and can hold 10 or more rounds?”
When Republicans pointed out that this goal was tantamount to banning most
modern handguns, liberal PolitiFact quickly came to Biden’s defense. The
fact-checking site did so again last week. “The most popular handguns would face
no restrictions under Biden’s policies,” wrote PolitiFact senior correspondent
Jon Greenberg. The basis of this conclusion, Greenberg wrote, is that the
popular Sig Sauer P365 cannot accommodate more than 10 or 15 rounds. This is
untrue. Although that is how the pistol comes from the manufacturer, this gun
and virtually all semiautomatics can use bullet magazines that extend well below
the pistol grip. The model Greenberg referenced can actually use magazines that
hold 20, 30, or even 50 rounds.
Presumably, PolitiFact believes that Biden’s proposed ban would only apply to
guns based on their “standard magazine” size. But Biden himself wasn’t
ambiguous. He talked about banning pistols based on their “ability to fire” or
that “can hold” so many rounds. When he mentions “military-style weapons
including pistols,” the president is talking about the gun themselves. He also
wants to ban so-called “assault rifles” regardless of how many rounds their
standard magazines hold, and he lumps those guns together with pistols. Over 85%
of handguns in the U.S. are semiautomatics and would be banned if Biden has his
way.
The nation’s top elected Democrats do not usually openly talk about banning
handguns, but their proposals aim to accomplish just that. Biden has also
proposed making gun manufacturers civilly liable for any misuse of firearms that
they sell. That means people could sue manufacturers and sellers whenever a
crime, accident, or suicide occurs with a gun – and would effectively put them
out of business. Normally, in such “product liability”
litigation, a manufacturer must produce a defective product or violate the law
in some way. But to run afoul of this proposed statute, gun makers need not do
anything wrong at all.
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Imagine what would happen to the car industry if
similar rules applied. The National Safety Council estimates that
car accidents in 2018 caused 39,404 deaths and 4.5 million injuries
in the United States. Most of these occur because a driver isn’t
paying attention or drives recklessly, perhaps under the influence
of drugs or alcohol, neglected to maintain the vehicle – or because
of some other combination of factors. Rarely is the car or truck
itself at fault. It would be ludicrous to make automakers pay lost
wages, medical costs, and pain and suffering because of a driver’s
negligence. Gun manufacturers likewise shouldn’t have to pay for the
misconduct of America’s citizens.
 Democrats’
unwillingness to fix the gun background check system also reflects
their desire to make life difficult for gun owners. Errors in the
system stop about 3.8 million law-abiding Americans from purchasing
firearms. Mistakes arise because most checks look at phonetically
similar names and similar birthdates and account for about 99% of
the denials. When I recently worked in the U.S. Department of
Justice, I saw data showing that the system overwhelmingly
discriminates against black and Hispanic males. All the government
must do is hold itself to the same standards for background checks
that private companies have to meet.
Or take Biden’s “zero tolerance” policy towards what he calls
“rogue” gun dealers. No policymaker wants dealers to secretly sell
guns to criminals out of the back of their store. But that is not
what Biden is going after. Even one mistake in paperwork, no matter
how trivial and inconsequential, now means the loss of their license
and the end of their business. When Biden talks about 5% of the gun
dealers selling 90% of the guns found at crime scenes, he ignores
that 5% sell over 90% of the guns. He ignores that less than 0.1% of
guns are used in a crime in any given year, and that guns are used
to stop crime about five times more frequently than they are used to
commit it. Semiautomatic guns account for the vast
majority of gun sales, and provide critical self-defensive benefits
for individuals. If manually loaded, single-shot guns are the
alternative, law-abiding victims are going to be in trouble if they
have to fire more than one round in self-defense against a criminal
with an illegally obtained semiautomatic.
Magazines, which are a box with a spring, are easy to make and
virtually impossible to stop criminals from obtaining. Let’s not put
law-abiding citizens at such a disadvantage by giving them only one
shot while criminals may have dozens.
Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention
Research Center and the author most recently of “Gun Control Myths.”
Until last month, Lott was the senior adviser for research and
statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal
Policy. |
