Today’s entry is Nicholas H. Wolfinger.
Reaching a compromise on assault weapons
[…]
Many mass shootings involve military-style assault rifles capable of rapid-fire mass murder: equipped with a hundred-round magazine, the Dayton shooter killed nine people and injured at least 27 more in 30 seconds.
An assault rifle is a shoulder-fired, select-fire firearm chambered for an intermediate-power cartridge. The Dayton chumbucket used a semiautomatic pistol.
Building on the National Firearm Act of 1934, the 1986 Act banned new machine gun sales but grandfathered in existing weapons. According to a 2015 ATF report, over 500,000 of these rifles remain in private hands.
Dipstick cites a four year old report that actually lists 543,073 machineguns total (not just rifles). The actual number is, per the ATF, 175,977 in private hands. To approximate Wolfinger’s number you have to add in restricted items and sales samples, neither of which is available to private individuals. And that only yields 490,664, because he failed to notice the exports in his source.
The 1986 Act codified a robust regulatory regime governing the transfer of machine guns between private parties.
No, the NFA 0f 1934 did that. FOPA ’86 banned transfer of machineguns not already registered.
Buying one requires a background check (including a testimonial from a local law enforcement officer), a fee, a permit, and a wait of up to a year for government processing. All such purchases are entered into a federal registry.
Close, but no cigar. Local law enforcement is notified, but — under federal rules; states may vary — the CLEO does not have to sign off on it.
No federally-licensed gun has ever been used in a violent crime, let alone a mass shooting.
Wrong again, bubba. September 15, 1988: Patrolman Roger Waller of Dayton, Ohio used his registered MAC-11 chambered in .380 to kill police informant and local drug dealer Lawrence Hileman.
And, while it was properly classed as an accident, there was the 2014 death of Charles Vacca at the Arizona Last Stop range by a young girl with a registered Uzi.
Why not extend this regulatory regime to all assault rifles?
All assault rifles are already covered by the NFA, and always have been (since the NFA predates the first assault rifles).
The El Paso shooter, for instance, purchased his assault rifle in the weeks before his rampage.
He didn’t have an assault rifle. He had a semi-automatic WASR-10.
Pistols, not rifles, are responsible for the vast majority of homicides and suicides in America
Pistols are nonsentient inanimate objects. They are not responsible for homicides or suicides; the people pulling the triggers are responsible.
Indeed pistols, many of which are capable of semi-automatic fire, have been used in some of our worst mass shootings, including the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting
Interesting that he doesn’t mention the Sig Sauer MCX, since he’s riding an “assault weapon” hobby horse.
Parenthetically, in modern US usage “pistol” refers to a handgun with the chamber integral with the barrel, and most often semiautomatic handguns. Wolfinger may find this firearms primer useful should he wish to, you know, actually know whath e’s talking about.
I wonder if Wolfinger is even aware that legislation to do what he wants — make all those nasty guns into NFA items — was actually filed back in February. I noted that while it requires everything to be registered within 120 days, in reality it would require a minimum of 54 years to get the tax stamp.
This professor’s classes must be a real joy for his students, stuck trying to sort truth from made up stuff in his lectures.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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