Feinstein's New 'Assault Weapon' Ban: Read It and Sleep

Reason.com ^ | January 27, 2013 | Jacob Sullum

[Kaslin]

The full text of the new, supposedly improved "assault weapon" ban proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein last week is now available for your perusal. The 121-page bill consists mostly of Appendix A, which takes up 95 pages and lists 2,258 "Firearms Exempted by the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013." As I said on Friday, this list is redundant at best, since any gun that is not specifically named as an "assault weapon" and does not meet the more general definitions is not supposed to be covered by the law, whether or not it is explicitly "exempted." It seems the main point of Appendix A is to impress us with Feinstein's lenience. Look, she specifically allows 14 times as many gun models as she specifically prohibits!

As for the list of 157 guns that are banned by name, it is much longer than the list in the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004 (which Feinstein also sponsored), and its terms are broader. While the expired ban covered "copies or duplicates" of the 18 named firearms, the new one covers "copies, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles"—language that seems designed to keep lawyers busy. The references to "variants" and "altered facsimiles" suggest that a gun can be deemed an "assault weapon" even if it is not listed and does not have any forbidden "military-style characteristics." Maybe that's one reason Feinstein tries to reassure gun owners with her lengthy list of exempted firearms.

A story in Friday's New York Times claims Feinstein's bill would "ban certain characteristics of guns that make them more lethal." By describing the bill that way, reporter Jennifer Steinhauer endorses Feinstein's fraudulent premise that "assault weapons" are especially suited to mass murder or other kinds of gun crime. Here are the characteristics that, according to Feinstein, turn a semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine into an "assault weapon": a pistol grip or forward grip, a grenade launcher or rocket launcher, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel, or a folding, telescoping, or detachable stock. How exactly do these features—a threaded barrel, say, or a grenade launcher without (already banned) grenades—make a gun "more lethal"? They don't, which is why opponents of "assault weapon" bans object to such arbitrary, appearance-based distinctions. Some people at the Times—notably, criminal justice reporter Erica Goode—understand this point. If Steinhauer had read and digested Goode's January 17 front-page story about the contentiousness of the very term assault weapon, she could have avoided the error (assuming that's what it was) of taking sides in an ostensibly evenhanded news story about Feinstein's bill.

New York Times reporters Thomas Kaplan and Danny Hakim made a similar mistake in a January 15 story about New York's new, stricter "assault weapon" ban, saying it would "bar semiautomatic weapons that have a single additional feature to increase their deadliness." Notably, that claim was excised from the online version of the story, which I took to be a sign that at least one editor at the Times recognizes the tendentiousness of such seemingly neutral descriptions. Maybe if there had been a correction at the bottom of the story acknowledging the change Steinhauer would not have repeated Kaplan and Hakim's error.

Steinhauer also claims Feinstein's bill includes "more explicit language on the types of features on banned weapons" than the old ban did. That's not true either. Feinstein fiddled with the list of suspect features (dropping bayonet mounts, for example), and she decided that one, rather than two, was enough to qualify a gun as an "assault weapon." The latter change made the ban broader, but it did not make it more "explicit," let alone "make it far more respectful of firearms for recreation uses," as a former Feinstein aide quoted by Steinhauer asserts.

[TurboZamboni]

DjDiFi Unchained.

[oldenuff2no]

I did read it and I am very convinced that it will never become law. This bill will not pass out current Senate much less the House.
KMA Fienstein. You can store a copy of your not passed legislation where the sun does not shine for the rest of your career.

[gaijin]

She was close allies with Jim Jones, who killed 400 people in Guayana, and NO ONE in the liberal SF media called her on it.

The bodies were all over the place.

He was her FRIEND and political ally.

[smithandwesson76subgun]

I think that is where she got it in the first place.

[Georgia Girl 2]

This POS will never get out of committee much less be brought to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

[MrB]

It was never intended to become law.

It was intended as a matador’s cape to focus our eyes over there while they infringed on our gun rights through “compromise”.

[G Larry]

Any such vague law would be used as an excuse to confiscate any weapon encountered by law enforcement.

You wouldn’t see it again for 3 years, while they “determine whether it violates any of the conditions”.

That’s if you’re lucky.

Screw compliance.

[Kaslin]

That says it all

[ZOOKER]

By posting a list of “legal” weapons in the bill, you imply that anything not on the list is “illegal”, whether it’s mentioned in the bill or not.

[Kaslin]

It should never get out of committee or brought to the floor of the Senate

[ontap]

I doubt she could get this passed in Sacramento!!!

[gaijin]

The handiwork of Jim Jones, San Fran DiFi supporter and backer:

Ah, but don't worry. I mean....THAT could never happen HERE, right...?

Right....?

[jim_trent]

> “a threaded barrel,”

Almost all guns have a threaded barrel (on the chamber end). Don’t think that they overlooked this.

[pfflier]

This POS will never get out of committee much less be brought to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

That is what we once said, in FR, about obummercare....Then came olympia snowe.

[elcid1970]

Or maybe the Feinstein bill should be voted on by the full Senate and hold the pollies’ feet to the fire by forcing them to go on record & risk their political futures, which is why if it does make it out of committee, Dingy Harry Reid will insure it never comes up for a vote.

BTW it’s good somebody brought up Feinstein’s close association with the murderous Jim Jones.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Pretty slick work Di, such a long bill. A long list.

All ready to go, “waiting” for the right time, were ya?

[Still Thinking]

Get this passed, DuFu, and the People With Rights lobby will work to pass a ban on ugly. Then whatcha gonna do?

[Still Thinking]

What’s to complain? Those were just extreme late-term abortions.

[AuntB]

Gaijin, you’ve been around FR for a long time, do you remember this?

Dianne’s hubby, Richard Blum, got a waiver from the gun ban from the Clinton admin to IMPORT THOUSANDS of Chinese assault rifles. That’s what the BLUMS do...supply arms all over the world! They sold the govt. arms for the Iraq war as well.

Details...most of them seem to be ‘missing’. We did months of work on this subject when it happened.

There is some on the web, it would take a good investigative journalist with more contacts than I have.

Here’s a bit:

http://209.157.64.201/focus/f-news/2851473/replies?c=11

[snip]Chinagate’s smoking gun
May 25, 1999 ... The same gun maker flooded the U.S. market with over 400000 assault rifles in
1994. ... banning assault weapons, including a ban on gun imports from the
Chinese army. ... The U.S. Treasury initially estimated this exemption would cover
12000 ... Chinese and COSCO include her husband, Richard Blum.
www.wnd.com/1999/05/7050/ - Cached - Similar

Feinstein quits committee under war-profiteer cloud
www.wnd.com/2007/03/40845/ - Cached
Mar 28, 2007 ... Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has abruptly walked away from her ... conflict of
interest stemmed from her husband Richard C. Blum’s ownership of ...