Sen. Feinstein tries again on weapons ban

Last week, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced an “updated” proposal to “ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.” While Democratic control of Congress and the White House are a political advantage, the proposal is unlikely to get far and it shouldn’t on its own merits.

Sen. Feinstein has made a point of reintroducing bans on so-called “assault weapons” ever since the 2004 expiration of the 1994 Feinstein-led ban on the sale of such a weapon.

As with prior iterations of the proposal, Feinstein’s updated legislation doesn’t prohibit the continued ownership of such weapons, only the ongoing sale of them.

As Reason Magazine’s Jacob Sullum notes, “That grandfather clause makes no sense if Feinstein really believes what she says,” because, “according to Feinstein, the guns she wants to ban are good for nothing but mass murder.”

Of course, while this exemption undermines the credibility and presumably intended effectiveness of such a ban on sales, there are practical reasons why Feinstein won’t go so far as to call for the outright confiscation of such weapons.

There are millions of such weapons already in circulation and enforcement of any criminalization of possessing certain types of firearms is likely to go as well as drug prohibition, which is to say, not very well at all.

As practical as it is that Feinstein’s proposal will allow current owners of said weapons to keep them, it runs into further contrast with the rhetoric she’s using to promote the proposal.

“We’re now seeing a rise in domestic terrorism, and military-style assault weapons are increasingly becoming the guns of choice for these dangerous groups,” she said in a statement introducing the bill.

Apparently, Americans are supposed to believe that banning the sale of assault weapons is a necessity to keep Americans safe from both mass murders and domestic terrorists, while at the same time Feinstein would explicitly allow current owners of such weapons to keep them.

This isn’t to say that Feinstein should try for that, but it’s a built in contradiction that fundamentally undercuts the rationale that the weapons being discussed are so inherently harmful that law-abiding Americans shouldn’t be allowed to legally acquire them.

After all, the only people who will actually be impacted by such a ban are the law-abiding, not domestic terrorists or mass murderers.

On those grounds alone, Feinstein and those sponsoring her assault weapons ban proposal would be better off figuring out more practical options for reducing gun violence and making sure people who shouldn’t have weapons don’t have them.

Absent the repeal of the filibuster, the proposal is practically unlikely to get far simply because of the 50-50 split of the Senate. It is doubtful that 10 Republicans would join Democrats to ram through a proposal likely to get legally challenged and face tough prospects before the U.S. Supreme Court.