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Democrats want to force floor vote on assault weapon ban

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Gun control advocates will never wait a respectful time before pushing their agenda because they know that failure to act quickly is basically a failure to act. When people are upset and emotional is when they’re most likely to be open to gun control measures like assault weapon bans.

That’s likely why reports have surfaced that Democrats want to force a floor vote on an assault weapon ban here and now.

The problem is, it’s not likely to accomplish anything.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who has been an outspoken advocate for gun control since the Sandy Hook shootings in his state more than 10 years ago, has co-sponsored the current legislation — originally introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California — that would ban assault rifles. On Monday, Murphy suggested that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., should bring his legislation to the Senate floor and force a vote while the world is watching.

“I think America wants to see where people stand on some of these issues,” Murphy said.

Other Democrats also sounded calls for additional measures.

“We can’t say that we’ve solved this problem or even addressed it seriously when incidents like today in Nashville, Tennessee, continue in America,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Monday. “We need to pass more reforms.”

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Cornyn, who led GOP negotiations during the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, called Biden’s remarks “the same old tired talking points.”

The president was “not offering any new solutions or ideas,” Cornyn told CNN. “If he does, I think we should consider them, but so far, I haven’t heard anything.” Asked whether he believed there were Republican votes for further gun reform efforts, Cornyn said, “I do not.”

What people like Murphy seem to believe is that they can bully and shame Republicans into voting for things like assault weapon bans, likely because he thinks they all secretly agree with him that they’ll work.

They won’t and everyone on the Republican side of the aisle knows it. I suspect more than a few folks on the Democrats’ side do as well.

The truth of the matter is that what happened in Nashville may have involved a long gun, but I don’t see any way in which a ban on such firearms would have magically prevented that from happening. The killer also had a handgun, for example, which many do. I find it very hard to believe that such an atrocity couldn’t be carried out with just pistols.

Especially since the worst school shooting in modern American history–Virginia Tech–also involved handguns and not the dreaded AR-15.

So forcing a floor vote on an assault weapon ban wouldn’t accomplish much of anything. Even if it passed, it wouldn’t protect a single person from a mass shooting. All it would do is deprive millions of Americans of yet another piece of their Second Amendment rights.

And following Bruen, it’s unlikely that an assault weapon ban would survive the courts, so that’s probably for the best.

It’s just too bad that we don’t see this kind of discussion or debate surround literally any other aspect of mass shootings. It’s always about the tool and not the tool using it.

Colorado Democrats introduce assault weapon ban

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Not that long ago, I talked about the gun control measures being considered in Colorado. One that was notably absent was an assault weapon ban. I noted then that, from a strategic standpoint, that was pretty smart. An assault weapon ban would be a pro-gun rallying cry, one that would make passage of any other measure that much harder.

I gave Democrats there credit for being pretty savvy.

It seems I shouldn’t have.

Democrats introduced an assault weapons ban at the Colorado statehouse late Friday, a move which is sure to inflame the legislature and potential push away some in the party who have expressed reservations about whether the state could enforce such a ban.

House bill 1230 was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee where several of the co-sponsors serve, including the bill’s main sponsor Democratic Rep. Elisabeth Epps.

Democrats could lose as many as 13 votes in the House and still pass the measure onto the Senate, which has a smaller Democratic majority.

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At the center of the debate is the question of what constitutes an assault weapon. As written, the measure would define an assault weapon as a “semiautomatic rifle” that uses detachable magazines and has one of a number of features, these include a pistol grip, a folding stock, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel, among others. The draft also would ban certain .50 caliber rifles, semi automatic pistols, shotguns with revolving cylinders and semiautomatic shotguns.

And really, the inclusion of .50 caliber rifles is how you know this is absolute nonsense and has nothing to do with criminal activity.

There has never, to my knowledge, been any crime carried out with such a firearm, much less there being some rampant epidemic of them being used in such a fashion.

It’s just not a thing.

Now, as the above quote notes, there is a healthy Democratic majority in the state House and they also possess a strong one in the Senate as well.

However, whereas before, a lot of pro-gun people might not have liked what was on the table, they might not have disliked it enough to fight over it. With an assault weapon ban on the table, especially one that gets into banning certain shotguns and pistols, that’s going to up the ante a fair bit.

Now there’s something to rally against that’s bad news across the board.

After all, once you start banning certain guns, it’s only a matter of time before you start to expand that definition and we all know it. We also know that even something like a grandfather clause is only a short-term respite.

Where Colorado Democrats had been smart to leave that off, at least for the time being, they may have well and truly screwed up.

Sure, they still have control, but a lot of those Democrats represent districts where they’ll have to fight to retain office. That fight becomes harder if people have a reason to oppose them, obviously.

That’s what an assault weapon ban puts on the table.

Dig in, Colorado. It’s time to get ready to fight.

New Mexico’s governor threatens special legislative session

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State legislators don’t pull in the kind of money that members of Congress make. In many places, it’s a part-time gig, where you work passing laws for a few weeks or months, then you go back to your regular life and regular work.

In New Mexico, for example, they don’t even get a salary. They get per diem that’s not more than many of us make on a daily basis.

So when a governor threatens a special session of the legislature, it could create financial hardship for lawmakers.

Going back to New Mexico, that’s what the governor there is threatening to do because gun control policies she supports are going nowhere.

One of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s key public safety initiatives may be in trouble, and she hinted the battle over such legislation may force a special session.

In her State of the State address, the governor called for legislative and public support to ban automatic weapons, saying they are tools of war that are flooding the streets and endangering both the public and police officers. But the tabling of one of two legislative initiatives to ban automatic weapons earlier this week puts the other’s fate into question — a point the governor acknowledged Tuesday during an interview at the Capitol.

“I wish I could say with a great deal of confidence that that one is going to move through,” Lujan Grisham said of House Bill 101 in an address to a crowd of mostly young people. “I think that one has the most difficulty (getting through).”

She suggested she would call a special session if need be to get some of the public safety measures moving forward.

“We may have to stay longer or do it again,” she said, adding just as lawmakers are likely to create an omnibus tax or education package, she could see a large-scale public safety package coming together.

Alright, so maybe this wasn’t intended to be any kind of a threat, but when I look at this, I can’t help but feel like she’s doing anything else.

First, automatic weapons are heavily restricted at the federal level. There have been no crimes I’m aware of that involved lawfully-owned full-auto weapons, so there’s absolutely no reason for any push on that front. Further, a ban on them isn’t needed. At most, New Mexico could enact a state-level law that essentially mirrored federal restrictions and penalties for any gun not lawfully owned in accordance with federal law. That would allow the state to prosecute violators without the feds being involved.

I don’t support that, mind you–I think you should be able to buy and operate an M-1 Abrams if your bank account could support it, personally–but it’s a far bit better than a ban.

HB 101, which is mentioned above, is not a ban on automatic weapons, but a more pedestrian assault weapon ban. However, let’s remember that California has all those laws and they saw two very high-profile mass shootings within a couple of days of one another. While I know I’m biased, I’m skeptical that it’s really that pressing of a thing.

Moreover, though, I’m troubled by this idea that a governor could or should just call a special session in an attempt to basically bully the legislature into adopting the policies they prefer. If the legislature doesn’t get it done in the designated period, then maybe there’s a reason for that.

Not that New Mexico’s anti-gun governor cares anything about that.

Colorado gun control lacks assault weapon ban. Why, and for how long?

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Colorado, in the wake of Colorado Springs, is pushing for gun control once again. While it’s not surprising to see, it’s still disappointing. It wasn’t all that long ago when Colorado was a fairly pro-gun state.

Unfortunately, those days are long over. Now, it seems the state looks for every opportunity to pass gun control, and this time is no exception.

Lawmakers appear poised to pass a litany of gun control legislation, but there’s a key bit missing from much of the current push: An assault weapon ban.

When Colorado Democrats rolled out their gun law reform legislation Thursday, it lacked a proposal already subject to much consternation — one to define and prohibit the sale of assault weapons.

Six weeks after an initial draft was released without the sponsors’ permission, the assault weapons bill has still not been introduced in the House. In the interim, Republicans have used the proposed ban as a punching bag, while top Democrats have coalesced around a cache of gun reform measures that include age limits, waiting periods and expanding the state’s red-flag law.

That’s moved the ban to the margins of the party’s historic effort to address gun violence. One of the measure’s initial sponsors — Rep. Andy Boesenecker, who previewed the bill for the Denver Post a month ago — has pulled his name from the bill. He declined to comment on the measure this week. The measure’s remaining primary House sponsor, Denver Democratic Rep. Elisabeth Epps, has grown increasingly frustrated about the bill’s status and feels the policy has been de facto sidelined by House leadership. She said she’s had tense discussions with Speaker Julie McCluskie about the proposal but that it’s now on track to be introduced in the coming days.

For Democrats, the bill stands at the intersection of policy and politics. On the one hand, assault-weapon bans are broadly popular among Democratic voters, in America and in Colorado, who have been on the front lines of America’s mass shooting crisis for more than two decades. Colorado’s two U.S. senators have both signed on to federal legislation to ban assault weapons, a measure supported by President Joe Biden and leading gun control groups.

On the other hand, the policy is deeply contentious — even in already tense gun-control debates — and, some lawmakers argue, will not do as much to prevent suicides and day-to-day gun violence as other bills. Those measures are already expected to invite hours of testimony and floor debate, without the additional tension of an assault weapons ban.

Honestly, that’s probably smart on their part. Assault weapon bans are contentious and while I don’t think any gun control is going to accomplish all that much, I know so-called assault weapons account for fewer fatalities each year than fists and feet, despite the anti-gun rhetoric.

Yet there’s a sliver of good news in general here, namely that if lawmakers are too concerned to try and push an assault weapon ban following a high-profile mass shooting, then there’s an opportunity to prevent the rest of the Democrats’ anti-gun agenda as well.

Sure, those other items tend to poll a whole lot better, but polls deal with broad concepts. What polling doesn’t ask about is the nitty-gritty details of particular bills.

It’s in those details that you find the things that people didn’t know about when they answered the pollster’s phone call. It’s there that you show people why these measures are terrible ideas, even when they believe the goal is worthwhile.

Yet as for the assault weapon ban, it’s a little surprising that Colorado isn’t going down that road, though we’ll see if the gun ban bill does get introduced this week as the House speaker indicated. From a political perspective they shouldn’t push something that will be that contentious and could provide a rallying point for the opposition. It’s a sound strategy.

It’s up to pro-gun voices, though, to make sure it doesn’t matter.

Dems offer responses to Michigan State shooting

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The nation is once again morning the loss of life at another senseless mass shooting. What took place Monday night at Michigan State University is a tragedy no matter how you look at it. We all know that to be true.

Where things get shaky is in how we think it best to respond to such a tragedy.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats throughout the nation have responded to what happened, and it’s not pretty.

Michigan Democrats are considering speeding up the passage of new gun legislation in the state following a shooting at Michigan State University on Monday evening that left three people dead.

The drive for new legislation will be one of the first significant tests of Democratic Party governance in the state since the midterm elections. Last year, Democrats unexpectedly captured “trifecta” control of Michigan, with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer cruising to reelection and her party narrowly flipping both state legislative chambers, too.

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“We’re going to try to move faster,” Democratic state Sen. Rosemary Bayer said in an interview Tuesday morning. “After years of not getting an inch, now we’re making real plans.”

“Some of the legislation we have goes back 10 years,” added Bayer, who represented the town of Oxford in 2021, when four students died in a mass shooting at a high school there. “We just haven’t been able to get any traction to do anything.”

That’s right. Pretty much all the measures they have been stymied on will come out once again. Plus, as noted, there’s a Democratic majority in Michigan, so there’s a good chance of many of those passing.

And Democrats didn’t wait long, either.

They’ve already introduced three bills in the wake of Michigan State, even before all the dust has settled.

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said during her State of the State address last month that she wants lawmakers to send three gun safety measures her way to enact universal background checks, allow extreme risk protection orders to keep guns away from those deemed a danger to themselves or others and institute safe storage requirements.

Yes, these measures were already likely in the works. Now, with what happened at Michigan State, they’ll get renewed focus and opposition will be blasted as supporting the shooting. It’s not like some of the Democrats in the state have gone out of their way to be rational, as Cam noted on Tuesday.

But it’s not just Michigan that’s jumping on the bandwagon.

The White House has made its opinions known as well, and it’s a bit of a shocker. President Biden didn’t just call for an assault weapon ban.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday afternoon issued a statement in response to a shooting at Michigan State University that left three students dead and five others wounded, and renewed his call for Congress to enact stronger gun control laws.

In the statement, Biden said he and his wife, Jill, “are praying for the three students killed and the five students fighting for their lives after last night’s shooting.” He also said “our hearts are with these young victims and their families, the broader East Lansing and Lansing communities, and all Americans across the country grieving as the result of gun violence.”

“Too many American communities have been devastated by gun violence,” he said. “I have taken action to combat this epidemic in America, including a historic number of executive actions and the first significant gun safety law in nearly 30 years, but we must do more.”

But what exactly does the president have in mind?

Well, among other things, an assault weapon ban.

Yeah, he couldn’t help himself, I’m sure.

Biden renewed his demand, which he made part of his State of the Union address last week, that Congress enact “commonsense gun law reforms,” including background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, closing certain loopholes in the background check system and requiring guns to be stored safely.

Of course, there’s nothing here that would have prevented the Michigan State shooting, but as per usual, the shooting is little more than a pretext to push for the policies they wanted all along.

That’s true at both the federal and state level here, as we can clearly see.

However, let’s not forget that the two previous mass shootings were in California, which has pretty much all of that on the books. It did nothing to prevent people from being killed. In fact, each of those shootings killed more people than lost their lives at Michigan State.

So I’m sorry, how are these measures so essential when they clearly have already failed?

I don’t expect an answer from anti-gunners on this, unfortunately. They’re too busy working themselves into a frothing rage because we won’t just bow down and let them have their way on this issue.

Well, I’ve got one thing to tell them: Get used to disappointment.