Sen. Feinstein's New Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Is the Perfect, Pointless Response for the 'Do Something' Crowd

We have to do something about mass shootings. This is something. Therefore, we must do this. Or something.

Eric Boehm|Nov. 8, 2017 2:35 pm

After another tragic mass shooting—one that likely could have been prevented if existing laws had been enforced—there has been another round of completely predictable calls to "do something" about America's apparent problem with gun violence.

For those who want to see something done, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) has done something. Along with more than 20 fellow Senate Democrats, Feinstein announced on Wednesday the re-introduction of a bill to ban so-called "assault weapons" and those bump stocks that took so much of the blame for last month's massacre in Las Vegas.

Specifically, Feinstein's legislation would ban the sale and manufacture of 205 different weapons (a full list can be found in the bill). One is the AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle used in several mass shootings, including the attack on the Texas church last weekend—and also used by Stephen Willeford, the former NRA instructor who engaged the church shooter and may have prevented further deaths. Feinstein's bill also targets specific gun accessories, including the bump stocks used by the Las Vegas concert shooter. Bump stocks allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at higher rates but with less accuracy.

The bill exempts weapons used for hunting, and it would allow anyone who already owns one of the proscribed guns to keep them. In other words, it would be completely ineffective at removing these weapons from American society. But that's not really the goal at all. The goal is to do something about gun violence, and Feinstein's proposal certainly counts as something. Something ineffective and useless, but still a thing. A thing that could be done.

Feinstein admits as much.

"We're introducing an updated Assault Weapons Ban for one reason," she said in a statement announcing the bill: "so that after every mass shooting with a MILITARY-STYLE ASSAULT WEAPON, the American people will know that a tool to reduce these massacres is sitting in the Senate, ready for debate and a vote."

It's interesting that Feinstein sees that as the "one reason" why this bill has been introduced. Not because it will stop mass shootings, or because it will make it harder for bad people to get guns, or even because it's a small step toward a less violent society.

Nope. This bill has been introduced for "one reason": so Democrats can score political points by holding it up and waving it every time there's a high-profile crime with a gun. Look! There's a bill right here, ready for debate and a vote! Will the bill do anything to stop these horrific attacks from happening? Well, no, but that's not the point.

At least she's being honest about it. Feinstein has never been particularly good at masking the fact that her assault ban proposals are based more in emotion than reason; this is another entry in that long ledger.

The simple fact of the matter is that no amount of new laws will stop mass shootings. And when we can't even accurately enforce the gun laws already on the books—the Texas church shooter would not have been able to buy his AR-15 if Air Force bureaucrats had properly reported his domestic abuse problems, as they were supposed to do—it's even harder to see Feinstein's proposal as anything other than what it is: a nakedly political maneuver meant to score points with the vapid "do something" crowd.

That would translate to 3.1:100,000. Every country in South America with the exception has a higher rate than that, and they all have strict gun control. Every country in Central America is higher than that. Every country in the Caribbean has a higher rate. Mexico, with one third of our population has five times our murder rate.
Wanna know a secret? The population of the countries you mentioned have one thing in common; they are over 98% white European. The murder rate for this demographic in this country is almost the same as the murder rate for this demographic in Europe. Imagine that. Ditto for Canada.
Matter of fact, the murder rate for whites of European descent in this country is less than 2:100,000. Gun laws or not. Period.

These numbers are dead wrong the gun deaths in Detroit alone is 55 per 100,000 and I know what I'm talking about because I have seen these bull shit lies before because like all these gun grabbing groups it's ok to lie to further their own agenda of scaring people out of money. Donate, donate often, donate a lot.

I'll tell you what's better than subtracting points for states with no gun laws lets try using something these idiots never use, the number of gun deaths and let's use a starting point that isn't a false flag . There is Detroit, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Chicago, DC, Oakland, Fresno. These cities have between 35 and 55 per 100,000 gun murders a year and the way it looks this year will set records in these cities, Even with these high numbers America has 4.5 per 100,000 murder rate

Now due to the fact none of these gang bangers that's life is going nowhere had a daddy around or the NRA to teach them how to shoot they hit everyone around but the one they are shooting at. The way they have learned off the streets to shoot a hand gun has made it impossible to teach them the right way. So just like the ROTC we give them rifles at least a 30/06 or 7MM mag. Teach them all to aim and shoot like their daddy would do if they had one. We then have a 'pay for view' battle royal at some laser tag arena. The last man standing will be given some of the profit to go to school with me taking the rest for my good idea. But the last thing you or anybody want to do is trust an anti gun organization putting out stats. Case in point, when the Brady Center claimed "child gun deaths were sky rocketing" They just took the age one becomes an adult 18 and made it 26 to include most all drug and gang related killings.

These cities have more in common than murder. They have high poverty, useless education, massive gun laws and all long histories of being ran by democrats. Do you think they will ever realize the reason they are stuck in these drug and crime infested rat holes? I ain't holding my breath. But don't quote me with these so called facts because it's all bull shit. Arizona number 3 WHAT A CROCK If any believe a word these limp wrest idiots claim as states I have some beach front property for sale right outside Phoenix

According to The New York Times, it's reported that the number of Americans killed on battlefields in all wars in history is a saddening 1,396,733 but, the number of Americans killed by firearms from 1968 to 2015 is even higher at 1,516,863.

Around the world, those countries have substantially lower rates of deaths from gun homicide. In Germany, being murdered with a gun is as uncommon as being killed by a falling object in the United States. About two people out of every million are killed in a gun homicide. Gun homicides are just as rare in several other European countries, including the Netherlands and Austria. In the United States, two per million is roughly the death rate for hypothermia or plane crashes.

In Poland and England, only about one out of every million people die in gun homicides each year — about as often as an American dies in an agricultural accident or falling from a ladder. In Japan, where gun homicides are even rarer, the likelihood of dying this way is about the same as an American’s chance of being killed by lightning — roughly one in 10 million.

In the United States, the death rate from gun homicides is about 31 per million people — the equivalent of 27 people shot dead every day of the year. The homicides include losses from mass shootings, like Sunday’s Las Vegas attack, the Orlando, Fla., nightclub shooting in June 2016, or the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting in December 2015. And of course, they also include the country’s vastly more common single-victim killings.

To give you a sense of how unusual America’s gun violence problem is, consider the daily death toll compared with other Western democracies. The chart below imagines that the populations of those countries were the same as the population of the United States.

Let me repeat this: "gun homicides is about 31 per million people — the equivalent of 27 people shot dead every day of the year." For the following countries gun homicides are at or below 5 people shot every day:

Norway
Ireland
Austria
Germany
Australia
Canada
Iceland
Finland
Spain
Slovenia
Portugal
Lithuania