Joe Biden should ban assault people

OPINION:

President Biden responded to the Boulder, Colorado, shootings by calling on Congress to pass a ban on assault weapons. Whatever that means.

Aren’t all guns to some extent capable of assaulting? It’s the people who are firing those weapons we really need to stop, yes?

But therein lies the beauty of the “assault weapons” phrase: It can mean whatever Democrats and anti-Second Amendment types want it to mean. Which is to say: It can mean whatever they can get away with saying it means.

Legally speaking, “assault weapon” is not a caliber. 

“Definition of what’s actually an ‘assault weapon’ is a highly contentious issue,” CNBC wrote in one 2018 headline.

Yes. It is. That’s because it’s largely meaningless. It’s hard to define an undefinable.

Some say an assault weapon is one that can switch from semi-automatic to automatic in one quick flip. But that would leave out AR-15s. And Democrats don’t want to leave out AR-15s. So Democrats instead focus on slinging about the emotionally charged phrase “assault weapons” and letting the rest go to imaginations — and to all their gun-hating, anti-Second Amendment water carriers in the media.

After all, nothing says scary, nothing says “government, do something,” like a repeated “assault weapon” chyron below news feed upon news feed of fleeing victims and survivors.

It’s only when facts enter the picture that the whole “assault weapons ban” thing starts to look downright nonsensical. Worthless. Politically motivated, even.

Statista Research Department conducted a study of the types of firearms that have been used in mass shootings in America between 1982 and 2021, and found — in layman’s — it ain’t the so-called assault weapons.

“Handguns are the most common weapon type used in mass shootings in the United States, with a total of 143 different handguns being used in 95 incidents between 1982 and March 2021,” Statista wrote. “These figures are calculated from a total of 121 reported cases over this period, meaning handguns are involved in about 78 percent of mass shootings.”

The study went on to say that since 1985, “there has been a known total 47 mass shootings involving rifles, mostly semi-automatics” — minus the Las Vegas shooting that killed 58, injured 546 and involved both semi-automatics and fully automatics.

Now about those handguns. 

“Though they tend to get less attention that gun-related murders, suicides have long accounted for the majority of U.S. gun deaths. In 2017, six-in-ten gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (23,854), while 37% were murders (14,542),” Pew Research Center wrote in August 2019.

Interesting. 

All the more interesting, considering post-Colorado tragedy, Biden said this: “I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour to take common-sense steps that will save lives in the future.” He called for federal bans on “assault rifles” and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Whatever that means.

He’d do better to ban suicides. 

But this is all politics and theater. This is all Democratic strategy and ploy. This is all about the end game, i.e., the destruction of the Second Amendment.

It unfolds thusly: When these bans don’t work — when they don’t have the intended effect of stopping mass shootings — the Democrats will then have an open door to press for more Second Amendment crackdowns. For more common-sense gun control. For more common-sense Second Amendment reforms that will, we’re told, we will be told, put a stop to all these crazy, tragic, senseless killings. They won’t. But Democrats will keep selling that line to push for more, more, more. So will their friends in the press.

Then come the additional background checks.

Then come the red flag laws and expensive, burdensome permitting rules.

Then come the government registries and eventual government confiscations.

Then comes the end of the Second Amendment. It’ll be a major Democrat win by major Democrat deception.

The only way to combat gun-related violence is to deal with the conditions that actually cause the type of hate and violence and anger and mental issues that bring the gun-related violence. But these are the issues the Democrats don’t want to touch. They don’t want to deal with broken homes, drug addicts, gangs and criminals. They don’t want to address the tear-down of traditional family, the crumbling of societal standards of behavior, the rise of adult enablers who work hard to strip notions of responsibility and accountability from the minds of today’s youth. They don’t want to look at the empty church pews, the removal of God from schools, the removal of God from the public stage.

They won’t call thugs in the streets what they are — thugs. But they will call out as racist those who rightly label the thugs in the street as thugs. After all, even Democrats don’t want to get shot trying to take guns away from these thugs. It’s much easier — and safer — to take guns from citizens who are law-abiding. 

If Biden truly wanted to address gun-related violence in America, he would talk about the real sources of gun-related violence. If Biden truly cared about the victims of gun-related violence, he wouldn’t jump into bed with his far-leftist, anti-freedom loons and exploit tragedy for political gain. That’s a fact.

Those are uncomfortable facts for all Democrats. Another fact?

Instead of calling for bans on assault weapons, Biden would be better off banning assault people. At least then, instead of going after hunks of lifeless metal, he’d be hitting at the honest, genuine source of gun-related violence: the actual shooter.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.