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marmar

(77,081 posts)
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 11:30 AM Jul 2012

Gun Laws and the Myth of the Slippery Slope


from No More Mr. Nice Blog, via AlterNet:



Gun Laws and the Myth of the Slippery Slope


When I drive a car, how many serial numbers am I required to carry with me? The car has a government-issued license-plate number. It has a vehicle identification number that I'm not at liberty to remove or obscure. I have to carry a government-issued driver's license with a license number. If I'm stopped by the police, I have to surrender this license and a registration form. And on and on.

And yet no one, apart from a tiny handful of ultra-libertarians, ever argues that we're on a slippery slope to the seizure of all private vehicles by a totalitarian government. Even car-related laws that generate public outrage -- red-light cameras, GPS tracking of cars by the police -- don't lead to fears that the freedom to drive itself is on the verge of being taken away. People get drivers' licenses, stop at red lights, pull over when the cops demand it -- and mostly still feel that they have the freedom to drive where they please. They still look at cars (some models, at least) and imagine liberation on the open road.

Why is it impossible for gun owners to feel the same way?

What's odd is that gun owners don't even seem to feel tyrannized by hunting regulations. Think about it: we have hunting seasons and hunting licenses and restrictions on the numbers of certain animals you're allowed to shoot -- and while quite a few people flout these laws, there's no well-funded mass movement arguing that all of these laws should be abolished, that anyone should be able to hunt any animal at any time, and that failure to allow this is jackbooted fascism. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1044799/gun_laws_and_the_myth_of_the_slippery_slope/



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lapislzi

(5,762 posts)
2. I never understood
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 12:08 PM
Jul 2012

Why it is not necessary to carry insurance on your firearm(s). It seems so elementary to me. You're purchasing something that can kill (like a car). You should be required to demonstrate proficiency in its use and carry insurance in case it hurts or kills someone or causes damage to property.

Insurance companies love taking your money. How they have not latched onto this is beyond me.

How is this not obvious to everyone?

benEzra

(12,148 posts)
3. Except that there *is* a fairly well funded lobby with broad media support
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 12:09 PM
Jul 2012

that *does* want to outlaw the most popular civilian rifles, handguns, and magazines in the United States, even those that are least misused. Heck, your article all but calls for banning AR-15 type rifles, the most popular civilian centerfire rifle in the United States.

FWIW, the article is incorrect in one detail; AR-15 type rifles were not illegal to manufacture, sell, or purchase between 1994 and 2004. It was during those years that the AR-15 platform became one of the top selling rifles on the market, though I am not sure if it reached #1 before or after 2004.

All the 1994 "assault weapon" ban did was to restrict the name "Colt AR-15", and to require that 1994-2004 AR's have nonadjustable stocks, muzzle brakes or target crowns instead of flash suppressors, and no bayonet lug. Full-capacity STANAG magazines were freely importable during the non-ban, so magazine capacities were not affected.

 

gregoire

(192 posts)
6. Clinton did ban them
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 12:33 PM
Jul 2012

He talked many times about his accomplishments in that regard. I just checked the Wiki page, and assault weapon features such as the adjustable shoulder things, bayonet lugs, normal capacity magazines, etc., were all killed. In hindsight Clinton should have pushed for laws to confiscate the existing weapons too because stopping the sale of new assault rifles isn't good enough. We should have gotten them off of the streets.

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
7. If "off the streets" is where it stopped, it would be a good thing possibly...
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 12:43 PM
Jul 2012

If "off the streets" is where it stopped, it would be a good thing, but out of someones gun safe, isn't exactly "off the streets".'

You did say "confiscate the existing weapons", right?

Beyond that, Clinton DID pass the law, but it didn't do what most people think it did.

I'll let benezra explain, hes more knowledgeable on it than I am.

benEzra

(12,148 posts)
10. No, that's a common misunderstanding of the law.
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 02:22 PM
Jul 2012

The 1994 law mandated the following:

--No new civilian guns could be marketed under any of 19 restricted names, including "Colt AR-15®".

--No new civilian guns could be manufactured with more than one of a list of certain features, including (for rifles) flash suppressor, threaded muzzle, bayonet lug, adjustable stock, folding stock, handgrip that sticks out.

--Magazines holding over 10 rounds could not be sold *if* they were manufactured after September 1994, but import and sale of pre-9/1994 magazines was not affected. Because AR-15 type rifles, civilian AK's, etc. use standardized magazines, there was about a 50-year supply of magazines already extant worldwide that could be (and were) freely imported post-1994, so price and availability of 30- and 20-round magazines was not affected at all once the initial panic wore off.

So in practice, the Feinstein law banned no guns at all, just slightly altered configurations. If the adjustable stock was pinned in a single position, the useless bayonet lug was deleted, and the flash suppressor were replaced with a muzzle brake, an AR-15 type rifle had only one restricted feature (a handgrip that sticks out) and was therefore legal as long as it wasn't marketed under the restricted name "Colt AR-15®", which was a registered trademark of Colt anyway and therefore irrelevant to the other 20 or 30 AR manufacturers that sprang up between 1994 and 2004. The Bushmaster XM-15, Rock River LAR-15, etc. were all very popular during the ban era, and probably three or four times as many AR's were sold 1994-2004 as in the previous three decades combined.

I myself bought a civilian AK with a 40-round magazine in 2003; mine was a new production 2002 model imported from Romania. Magazines in 2003 were $9.99/ea for 30-round Warsaw Pact mags and $5.99 for Hungarian 20-round mags. As with most ban-era AK's, mine had a smooth muzzle, smooth bayonet lug, and traditional fixed stock.

The "ban" was all smoke and mirrors, and had no effect but to vastly increase sales of AR's and civilian AK's by a factor of three or four between 1994 and 2004. There was no effect on crime, positive or negative, because rifles of any type have always accounted for only about 3% of murders in any given year. Check out the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Table 20, Murder by State and Type of Weapon, and compare the "Rifles" column to handguns, shotguns, edged weapons, blunt objects, and even fist/feet; I think you'll be surprised.

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
4. The slippery slope does not exist?
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 12:30 PM
Jul 2012

1934 - the national firearms act which at that time, essentiually banned automatic weapons, short barreled shotguns, short barreled rifles, and destructive devices. i say essentially banned, because in truth those things can be owned but you must have ATF do an in depth background check, and pay a 200 dollar tax - which in 1934 - was a prohibitive fee.

Before this law, these guns were sold mail order. No license, registration, or background check.

1968 - the gun control act. The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA or GCA68), is a federal law in the United States signed by President Lyndon Johnson that broadly regulates the firearms industry and firearms owners. It primarily focuses on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers and importers.

Under the GCA, selling of firearms to certain categories of individuals is prohibited.
AS QUOTED FROM Section 922 Section D Bowleg 1-9


(d) It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person - (1) is under indictment for, or has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year (2) is a fugitive from justice; (3) is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)); (4) has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution; (5) who, being an alien - (A) is illegally or unlawfully in the United States; or (B) except as provided in subsection (y)(2), has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(26) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(26))); (6) who (!2) has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; (7) who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced his citizenship; (8) is subject to a court order that restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child, except that this paragraph shall only apply to a court order that - (A) was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice, and at which such person had the opportunity to participate; and (B)(i) includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or (ii) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury; or (9) has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. (the domestic violence part was added by the lautenburg amendment)


The Brady bill - The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Pub.L. 103-159, 107 Stat. 1536) is an Act of the United States Congress that instituted federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States.

It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 30, 1993, and went into effect on February 28, 1994. The Act was named after James Brady, who was shot by John Hinckley, Jr. during an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981.

The "Assault weapons ban". The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) (or Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act) was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law in the United States that included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms, so called "assault weapons". There was no legal definition of "assault weapons" in the U.S. prior to the law's enactment. The 10-year ban was passed by Congress on September 13, 1994, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton the same day. The ban only applied to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment.

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired on September 13, 2004, as part of the law's sunset provision.

Opponents of the ban claimed that its expiration has seen little if any increase in crime, while Senator Feinstein claimed the ban was effective because "It was drying up supply and driving up prices. The number of those guns used in crimes dropped because they were less available."[2] A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) stated that he "can in no way vouch for the validity" of Brady Campaign's claim that the ban was responsible for violent crime's decline.[3]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the "assault weapon" ban and other gun control schemes, and found "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence."[4] A 2004 critical review of research on firearms by a National Research Council panel also noted that academic studies of the assault weapon ban "did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence" and noted "due to the fact that the relative rarity with which the banned guns were used in crime before the ban ... the maximum potential effect of the ban on gun violence outcomes would be very small...."[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapons_ban

And now we have all manor of anti-gun people clamoring to ban all semi-automatic weapons. Limit magazine capacities.

And not a single one of them as that I have ever seen, has ever said that they'd stop there, or for that matter, where they would stop at all.

If there isn't a slippery slope, the only reason for it, is because gun owners by and large are calling their elected representatives and telling them not just no, but hell no - and millions are yolking the strength of the nra - in spite of how bad they can be.









 
5. It might have something to do with the fact
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 12:31 PM
Jul 2012

That it takes all of 5 minutes after a new gun law is passed before people are demanding further restrictions.

 

Marinedem

(373 posts)
8. These quotes are what creates the "slippery slope" idea.
Mon Jul 23, 2012, 12:45 PM
Jul 2012

These quotes are what creates the "slippery slope". By the banners' own admissions, the slope is not a possiblity, but the actual process. The last one is particularly telling.




"If I could have banned them all - 'Mr. and Mrs. America turn in your guns' - I would have!"
- Diane Feinstein

"We must be able to arrest people before they commit crimes. By registering guns and knowing who has them we can do that. If they have guns they are pretty likely to commit a crime."
-- Vermont State Senator Mary Ann Carlson


"We're bending the law as far as we can to ban an entirely new class of guns."
-- Rahm Emmanuel, senior advisor to Bill Clinton

"We must get rid of all the guns."
-- Sarah Brady speaking on behalf of HCI with Sheriff Jay Printz & others on "The Phil Donahue Show" September 1994

Our main agenda is to have ALL guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn't matter if you have to distort facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed."
-- HCI President Sarah Brady to Senator Howard Metzenbaum, The National Educator, January 1994, p.3


"Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal."
-- U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, December 1993

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