With a population of a little over 1,121,000, Rhode Island is the 45th most populated state. It is also, by area, the smallest US state. However, Rhode Island’s legislative Democrats are trying to best their larger blue state brethren in constraining fundamental liberties.
As one might expect, Rhode Island Democrats are trying to ban “assault weapons,” using the kind of vague, all-inclusive language such bills commonly include. One may debate if this represents an all-too-common lack of firearm knowledge or is a cynical attempt to ban as many guns as possible, but if enacted the result will be the same.
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Graphic: Common AR-15. Author
There is no such thing as an “assault weapon,” which Dem-written bills essentially define as any gun they want to ban. That commonly means any gun that resembles a class of guns that does exist: military assault rifles. An assault rifle is a shoulder fired arm like our military M4 carried by a single soldier, which is select fire—semiautomatic and automatic—and which fires an intermediate, not high-powered, cartridge. The civilian-available AR-15, which is semiautomatic only but outwardly resembles the M4 is a prime example. Dem subterfuge was revealed in a 1988 book by Josh Sugarman:
“Assault weapons-just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms-are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons-anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”
That’s a deception applied by Dems since. The Rhode Island attempt follows a familiar Dem anti-liberty/gun pattern by banning “military-style features” on rifles, shotguns and pistols. Weapons with pistol grips, folding stocks, threaded barrels, even accessory forearm grips, would be banned.
“Some will say this is not going to do everything. You’re absolutely correct. This is not going to do everything,” [Dem Senator Lou] DiPalma said. “It’s yet another building block in the framework of gun safety and gun violence.
It’s a step-by-step, feature-by-feature approach to banning entire classes of guns, a failed approach used in the 1994 Clinton gun ban which banned similar features and accessories. When the law sunset ten years later, even congressional Democrats abandoned it because it cost them many seats and did nothing to reduce crime or increase public safety.
“I think it’s drawn confusion because we’re referring to them all as assault weapons, when, in reality, this bill does not really distinguish actual, quote/unquote, assault weapons from handguns and certain kinds of shotguns,” [Senator Andrew] Dimitri, a recreational bird hunter, said during the hearing.
The cosmetic features Dems would ban do nothing to increase the lethality of semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15. Rifles without pistol grips, forearm grips or threaded barrels fire the same cartridges. The point is to establish a precedent that would allow banning an entire class, in the case of the AR-15, America’s most widely owned and popular sporting rifle.
There is no public safety justification for banning these popular rifles. Rifles of all kinds are used in only a tiny portion of crimes in America, so-called “assault weapons” are used in a tiny portion of that tiny portion:
“If we look over the past 13 years, 0.6% — that’s 0.6%, not even one percent — of all homicides in Rhode Island are attributed to rifles that will be banned by this bill,” [National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Jack] McGuigan said. “Why do we need a common-sense approach to address 0.6%?…That’s not a problem, that’s a rounding error.”
As one might expect, the anti-liberty/gun lobby has a different view:
“Those are lives, not rounding errors,” [Everytown F]for Gun Safety’s Greg] Lickenbrock said.
Lickenbrock tries to engage emotion to override rational public policy. It’s the “if it saves even one life, we have to do it” argument, whose logical progression would outlaw anything that might harm anyone. Another nonsensical or purposefully deceptive feature of the bill refers to kinetic energy:
DiPalma said weapons which would be banned by the bill yield impacts “nine times greater than…from a traditional weapon.”
That’s a vague and irrational standard. With the ubiquitous .22LR as a baseline, it would theoretically ban most pistol and rifle cartridges and the firearms that chamber them, which is precisely anti-liberty/gun cractivist’s intention.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Jessica de la Cruz understands:
If enacted, this ban would ban most weapons in common use here in Rhode Island, it would be a blatant violation of the United States Constitution as well as the Rhode Island constitution.
As intended, the bill would ban most semiautomatic handguns, shotguns and rifles. Arms clearly constitutionally protected by the Second Amendment as affirmed by the Supreme Court’s Heller and Bruen decisions. It’s more of the same, but this time from our smallest state.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
