A number of members of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) group here are proud, card-carrying members of the Liberal Gun Club. Not many of them post here anymore, though there are a few stalwart gun worshipers who pop up every time there is a mass murder to defend their right to own an assault-style rifle and to declare that, “No one is getting my guns!”
(I find the fact that they only show up here after massacres to be downright ghoulish.)
The study I cite, above, provides some pretty startling evidence that the AWB and its associated limit on high-capacity magazines was highly effective in limiting massacres of six or more people:
|
1984-1994 (No AWB) |
1994-2004 (AWB) |
2004-2014 (N0 AWB) |
Incidents |
19 |
12 |
34 |
Deaths |
155 |
89 |
302 |
Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.
Klarevas says that the key provision of the assault weapons bill was a ban on high-capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. “We have found that when large capacity mags are regulated, you get drastic drops in both the incidence of gun massacres and the fatality rate of gun massacres.”
The opinion is shared among many researchers who study gun violence for a living. In 2016, for instance, the New York Times asked 32 gun policy experts to rate the effectiveness of a variety of policy changes to prevent mass shootings. The roster of experts included violence prevention researchers like Harvard's David Hemenway, as well as more ideologically driven gun rights advocates like John Lott.
On a scale of effectiveness ranging from 1 (not effective) to 10 (highly effective), the expert panel gave an average score of 6.8 to both an assault weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines, the highest ratings among the nearly 30 policies surveyed.
Ardent gun worshipers are ardent gun worshipers, regardless of political persuasion. Invariably, gun worshipers point out that assault-style weapons are responsible for a statistically small percentage of the annual gun carnage in the U.S., as one gun worshiper here told me just today:
A relatively small number (about a few hundred per year) are killed using “assault” weapons. But you still want to ban the big scary black “assault” weapons, right?
I guess the point is that since the number of people killed by assault-style weapons is only “a few hundred per year,” it’s pointless to attempt to limit the sale of these weapons and high-capacity magazines.
So the 17 killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are just numbers, and small numbers at that.
A vast majority of Americans are in favor of banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines:
A 2017 Pew Research Center poll found that 68 percent of adults favor banning assault weapons, and 65 percent support a ban on high-capacity magazines.
More strikingly, substantial numbers of gun owners supported the measures as well: 48 percent of gun owners in that poll said they would support a ban on assault style weapons, and 44 percent said they favored a ban on high-capacity magazines. A Quinnipiac poll conducted later in the year showed similar numbers.
The ardent gun worshipers, when confronted with polls like this, then turn to another of their favorite lines of distraction/defense:
“You don’t know anything about guns, and ‘assault weapon’ doesn’t mean anything.”
To see examples of this line of defense, here is a diary I posted back on February 9, 2013 when the ardent gun lovers here were defending their right to own assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, post-Sandy Hook, using the “you-can’t-talk-about-guns-if-you-don’t-understand-them” distraction:
I have heard or read all the namby-pamby gun hater rhetoric about how this new law or that new law will magically stop the violence problem in our country, and I'm here to tell you: IT WON'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I have the facts to back me up!!!!!!!!!
1. Hands kill more people than guns!!!!!!!!!! SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO???? OUTLAW HANDS?????????????????
How would we shoot our guns type these diaries without hands??? HUH???? So because more people get killed with hands than guns, ARE YOU SUGGESTING WE OUTLAW HANDS???????? I'm telling you right now, if you even think about doing that, I am going to have my hands converted into guns!
2. We have 300,000,000 million guns in this country!!!!! 300,000,000!!!!!!!! (I only have seven at the moment, but because of you GUN GRABBERS, I am thinking of getting more!!!!!!) So how do you propose we TRACK all those guns????
I suggest you Google some little county in Tennessee where they have five guns per person in the county, including babies!!!!! BABIES WITH GUNS!!!!! Are you going to march in there with ATF agents and round up BABIES??????? WTF!!!!!! So, no, any kind of registry or background check on the guns already out among the public will NOT work!!!!! GUNS RULE!!!!! Give it up. You must be smoking something. Babies don't even talk yet so trying to reason with them while you're taking away their guns WON'T WORK!!!!!!!! They'll just start shooting!!!! Dummies...
3. Oh, AWB????? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! What you call ASSAULT WEAPONS (they are no such thing!!!!) only kill between 300 and 600 people a year!!!!! MORE PEOPLE ARE KILLED FALLING OFF LADDERS!!!!!!!!
Are you going to outlaw ladders???? and HANDS???? And do you know how many first, second and third graders are either killed or injured by falling off ladders every year??? DO YOU????? Didn't think so!!!! Well, go look it up!!!! Maybe. Or something. Seriously!!!!!
4. You have to understand GUNS the way a real gun person does BEFORE YOU CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT THEM!!!!!!!! Or even SAY anything about them!!! And even then, YOU WON'T BE RIGHT!!!!!!
Select shot crew served weapons pistol caliber round firing mechanism rate of fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SEE??????????????????????? Did you understand that??? DIDN'T THINK SO!!!! You know NOTHING!!!! Idiots...
5. NO, THAT WON'T WORK, EITHER!!!!!
Whatever it is you just suggested WON'T WORK!!!! Don't be so ignorant!!! Or foolish!!!! IT WON'T WORK!!!!!!!!!!! Now, please stop with all the nonsense. I hope we can quit writing about guns here now. I plan on writing another diary today on the subject just to make sure YOU KNOW YOU ARE WRONG about guns so we can all quit writing about guns and I will CONTINUE to write diaries about how YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING about guns and how what you are proposing WON'T WORK until such time as we quit writing diaries about guns. I am now going to go take a nice long, soaking bath while I blow dry my hair. WHICH REMINDS ME, DID YOU KNOW THAT MORE PEOPLE ARE KILLED TRYING TO BLOW DRY THEIR HAIR WHILE IN THE TUB EVERY YEAR THAN ARE KILLED BY WHAT YOU MISTAKENLY CALL ASSAULT WEAPONS?????? So what's NEXT????? OUTLAWING BATHS AND HAIR DRYERS???"?? Idiots....
That diary was a follow-up to a diary I posted on February 3, 2013 that drove some of our resident gun worshipers over the edge:
This gun confiscation talk has me on edge. It's a good thing I have my gun. Some people have security blankets. Some people have favorite stuffed animals. I have my gun. Okay, I actually have seven guns. But, then, some people have large collections of stuffed animals.
I feel safe with my gun. "Safe," you might ask, "Safe from what?"
"Safe from what?" What is wrong with you people? You don't see it?
THEN YOU'RE NOT LOOKING!!!!!!!!!!!
I live in fear of a band of marauders bursting through my front door or busting a window and climbing in.
This could happen at any moment. As such, I am glad I am prepared. I have my gun right here. It's hard to type with it in my hand, so excuse any typos. But I will get them before they get me! You can count on that!
Oh no! There's someone knocking at the front door right now! I swear, I will waste that--
Hang on, hang on... It's the little girl from down the block selling Girl Scout cookies. She is one ballsy kid, that's all I can say. She's going to door to door and she doesn't appear to be packing. I wish I had the courage to do that.
I live in fear of a tyrannical government taking away my freedoms and liberties.
I am the last line of defense of our constitutional freedoms! When only the government has guns, I will be at their mercy! They are coming to get my guns! All of them! I know it! It is me and the Constitution against the tyrannical overlords! Stay away, tyrannical overlords! I am armed!
There's a knock at my door! It is a man in a government uniform! I will waste that tyrannical government overlord who is trying to take away--
Hang on, hang on... It's a guy from the Water Department. He said the water line running down the street has a small leak so they will be shutting off our water for 20 minutes.
Wait... Shutting down our water? Are they trying to starve us out so they can get our guns? What the hell? I'll be right back. I'm going to fill up the bathtub. I'll be ready for those tryannical gun grabbers! Me and my gun and the Constitution!
I live in fear of the coming civil war.
Yes, when the tyrannical overlords arrive to take away my guns (now I'm wondering if that guy was really from the Water Department or if he is scouting for the houses that will not be easy targets when the gun grabbers arrive), I will be ready for the civil war! Me and my guns. Me and my fellow patriots will defend this great nation from within!
There's a knock at the door! It's a police officer! I hope he is ready to join our side in the fight against the tyrants! Or is he here to take away my guns? Was the Water Department guy a scout? They're coming to get my guns!
I will not answer the door. I will hide here, beneath my computer table and make that officer think I am not here. Silence. I must maintain radio silence. I don't have a radio. A two-way radio, I mean, so I can communicate with my fellow patriots in the civil war! What was I thinking! I am here, all alone! Trying to defend our Constitution! Our freedoms and liberties! Dear Lord, watch over me and keep me safe as I prepare to fight the tyrannical overlords!
Hold on, hold on... I think he's gone. There's a note stuck to the front door. Oh. It's a "courtesy reminder" that my car that's parked out front needs a new city sticker. It was supposed to be on January 1, but I haven't gotten around to it. That was nice of them not to give me a ticket.
Still, he may have been scouting. I will not be an easy mark when the gun grabbers arrive! I will defend my fellow citizens from the those who would usurp our freedoms!
Oh my gosh. What a day. I'm exhausted.
And I need to change my diaper.
Read the comments in that piece. One would have thought I stole their binkie.
My point is that we have to be hard-asses about this stuff. There is no negotiating with these people who worship guns, and I don’t care if they call themselves “liberals.” They have swallowed the NRA propaganda hook, line and sinker. The only thing they will understand is losing power and the only way they lose power is to vote out elected officials preventing movement on rational gun control.
Because these people are not rational. Not in any sense of the word. Their adoration of assault-style weapons is a kind of fanaticism that will not yield to rational arguments. We need to fight them. Hard.