As firearms sales cool off this summer, House Democrats have helpfully given sales of semi-automatic rifle sales a boost by passing H.R. 1808, their latest attempt at banning the most popular long guns sold in America. AR makers may want to send flowers to Speaker Nancy Pelosi who finally managed to twist enough arms in her own party caucus to narrowly pass the bill this evening.
This latest “assault weapons” ban is, of course, nothing more than political theater. Performative legislating meant only to give hapless Democrats something to run on this November.
The bill has zero chance of passage in the Senate where it would require at least 10 Republican votes. And under the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, banning a rifle that’s owned by tens of millions of Americans clearly violates the Heller decision’s “common use” standard.
Still, Nancy gets to wave to the crowd and claim a win for “gun safety” through the passage of a clearly unconstitutional bill in front of the adoring media before the House breaks for summer recess.
Here’s NSSF’s statement on this great legislative achievement . . .
NSSF, the firearm industry trade association, condemns the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of H.R. 1808, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2022, as amended. The legislation ignores the Constitutional right, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, for law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms that are in common use. NSSF estimates that there are over 24.4 million Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) in circulation in America between 1990 and 2020.
“This legislation is as dangerous as it is revealing of the contempt that the House Democrats hold for the Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Chairman Jerrold Nadler admitted during debate in his committee that he didn’t care the legislation was unconstitutional and defied Supreme Court precedent. Democratic representatives are not fulfilling the interest of ‘the People,’ instead representing special-interest gun control groups that seek to disarm law-abiding citizens and scapegoat them for crimes committed by others.”
The MSR remains the most-popular selling centerfire semiautomatic rifle in the United States today. There are more MSRs in circulation today than there are Ford F-Series trucks on the road. The Supreme Court upheld that commonly-owned firearms are lawful for private ownership in both the Heller and Bruen rulings. Banning of an entire class of semiautomatic firearms can be viewed as nothing short of an outright infringement of Second Amendment rights – rights which belong to the people and not the government. This legislation, however, also includes some semiautomatic shotguns and handguns.
This legislation does nothing to improve public safety, as it doesn’t address criminals acting without regard for law or innocent life. Instead, it will put the lives of those who obey the law at greater risk by denying them an entire class of firearms that are used for home defense.
The previous 1994 Assault Weapons Ban proved to be ineffective at reducing crime. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded the “assault weapons ban” did not result in crime reduction.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report shows more murders were committed by individuals using knives, fists and clubs than by those using any rifle – not just MSRs like AR-15s.
