Nothing irks me more in the gun debate than the phrase "assault rifle ban." Assault rifles are banned. The things gun control advocates want to ban either improve handling, are cosmetic or both.
For the sake of the Bill of Rights, though, I look past this annoyance. Gun rights defenders should consider supporting a misnamed "assault rifle ban" precisely because it would be largely cosmetic. What changed my mind was realizing how even a misnamed ban might be a rational response to irrational actors.
Mass murderers are not rational, to state the obvious to a ridiculous degree. For whatever reason, mass shooters' weapon of choice since 2015 looks like a souped-up military-issue AR-15. Take away the pistol grip, the straight-line stock, the barrel shroud and so forth. You still have a weapon just as deadly when your target is someone in a crowd. But -- for whatever reason -- that is not the weapon these villains prefer.
I wish there was more research on whether taking away the "looks cool" factor would reduce gun violence. Politically, though, no research is needed here. Such a "ban" would be claimed as a major victory by those who seek tighter control on guns. It might even be a real victory if it discourages would-be murderers. But such a "ban" would not compromise anyone's fundamental rights.
The chief argument against such a ban is the slippery slope fallacy. Step along that path and tighter restrictions will follow, the argument goes. Well, you can stop a slide along a slope. Falling off a cliff, however, is a one-time event until you hit the ground. Those who believe the drive to repeal the Second Amendment, for instance, is a hopeless cause should remember that gay marriage seemed like a far-off dream 10 years ago.
All that said, fairness demands some acknowledgement that these weapons of choice inherited more from real assault rifles than good looks.
Without going all history nerdy or grisly, the deadliness of what could be called "tactical" semi-automatic rifles comes from their ammunition -- the smallest, lightest, cheapest round that can reliably kill someone at farther than pistol range.
The smaller and lighter the ammunition, the smaller and lighter the rifle that fires it needs to be. Therefore, the smaller and lighter the ammunition, the easier it is to handle the smaller, lighter rifle firing it -- and the more rounds one person can carry. Such a rifle is easier to keep on target, or rapidly switch to a new target, than a heavy-duty rifle with a lot of kick.
Even a rookie shooter can handle such a rifle. We discovered that in Vietnam. Raw Vietnamese recruits could shoot well with an AK-47. In a veteran's hands, it was deadly. Getting basically competent with an American rifle firing the much more powerful .30-06 round took training and practice. The assault rifle the AR-15 is derived from is the M-16, the American answer to the AK-47.
True assault rifles can fire fully automatically, like a machine gun. Or they can fire semi-automatically, with one shot per trigger pull. The shooter chooses with the flip of a switch. Those types of weapons are already tightly restricted. Those of us who know the difference tend to scoff at those who do not. However, I reflected on the matter a lot lately, particularly after talking to a veteran who used assault rifles in combat.
Fully automatic fire is a last resort in combat, he told me. The real deadliness of these types of rifles is in the abundance of ammunition one man can fire between reloads, the deadliness of each round and the quick, responsive handling of the weapon that fires it.
It is a weapon designed to kill people, he told me. It was never intended for civilian use.
He is right, but intentions notwithstanding, these are arms and the right to bear them shall not be infringed. In the interest of preserving that right, making them look less like props in a Rambo movie ought to be considered.
As I say each time the subject comes up, the Second Amendment has become the vulnerable point in the Bill of Rights. If those rights are going to get tampered with, the right to bear arms is the weak spot to attack. Sacrificing cosmetics is a price worth paying to lessen that chance.
Commentary on 04/07/2018