Tag: gun control

New York enacts sweeping new gun ownership restrictions

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a sweeping package of gun control bills into law Monday, calling gun violence “a disease that is tearing our nation apart.”

The state legislature passed and Hochul signed into law 10 bills that will implement new restrictions on gun ownership, including raising the age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle in New York from 18 to 21 years old. Democratic lawmakers claim the new gun control measures will close “loopholes” in existing laws that were exposed by the deadly mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas last month.

In addition to raising the age to purchase a rifle, lawmakers banned the sale of bulletproof armor for anyone not in law enforcement, strengthened the state’s red flag law to take guns away from mentally unstable people, and introduced new requirements for social media companies to monitor and report “hateful conduct” on their platforms.

“Gun violence is an epidemic that is tearing our country apart. Thoughts and prayers won’t fix this, but taking strong action will,” Hochul said in a statement.

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The Federal Government’s Own Study Concluded Its Ban on ‘Assault Weapons’ Didn’t Reduce Gun Violence

Do something.

This is a response—and perhaps a natural one—to a human tragedy or crisis. We saw this response in the wake of 9-11. We saw it during the Covid-19 pandemic. And we’re seeing it again following three mass shootings—in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, and Tulsa Oklahoma—that claimed the lives of more than 30 innocent people, including small children.

In this case, the “something” is gun control. In Canada—where no attack even occurred—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the introduction of legislation that would freeze handgun ownership across the country.

“What this means is that it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” Trudeau said in a press conference.

In the United States, the rhetoric has tended to be more heated but also vague, though some specific proposals have emerged.

Over the weekend, Vice President Kamala Harris called for an all-out ban of “assault weapons.”

“We know what works on this. It includes, let’s have an assault weapons ban,” Harris told reporters in Buffalo after attending the funeral of a victim.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden, while speaking from the White House Cross Hall before a candlelit backdrop, called on Congress to pass new gun control legislation, including a ban on assault weapons.

“How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” Biden asked.

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Whoopi Goldberg Thinks The AR15 Should Be Banned Because It ‘Turns People To Dust’

If you want to find some of the dumbest political hot takes of the past five years, you only need to have a strong stomach and the patience to sit through the numerous uneducated discussions of the clucking flock on The View.

Whoopi Goldberg continues this winning tradition (The View’s audience numbers tanked this year and it remains 10th among women 18-49 in daytime television) with her recent comments on gun control, arguing in favor of criminal arrest for Americans that own AR15s that refuse to give them up. When pressed on the fact that gun crimes could just as easily be committed with pistols during a largely one sided debate against her co-host, Goldberg argued that handguns “don’t turn people to dust.”

Neither do AR15s, but lets not bring reality into a debate that was broadcast on The View. Injury and death is just as likely from a handgun as it is from an AR15. You are also more likely to find expanding hollow point ammo used in a pistol. The primary difference is that a pistol’s range is limited, usually to 50 yards or less. This makes little difference though, as most shooting events and crimes occur within 50 yards anyway, and this includes shootings where rifles are involved.

Whether or not this was hyperbole, the insane misconceptions put out into the mainstream by anti-2nd Amendment activists falls in line with a long series of lies and gaffes uttered by Joe Biden and other Democrats. If you don’t know anything about the weapons you are trying to ban, then maybe you shouldn’t be trying to ban them?

The fact is, the vast majority of gun crimes and gun related homicides are committed with handguns according to FBI stats; only 2%-3% of crimes and homicides are committed using rifles or “assault rifles” on average. The claim that the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban had any bearing on the overall decline in gun crime in the 1990s is false – The largest decline was in handgun homicides, and handguns were not subject to the 1994 ban.

Goldberg’s assertion that gun rights advocates should compromise and allow the banning of this “one gun” is naive; gun grabbers will never be satisfied with limited gun control, only total gun confiscation (at least among the poor and the people that oppose them politically). Say what you want about Beto O’Rourke, but his big mouth is valuable in that he often lets slip what the real agenda on gun control is.

Goldberg then goes on to suggest that people can “report” AR15 owners and have them arrested, saying the solution is “simple” and compared this to reporting and arresting women who abort their babies in states where abortion is banned. Interesting how the political left is rabidly in favor of killing people in the womb despite numerous other birth control options, but wants to strip all law abiding citizens of their rights whenever people die from gun related homicides.

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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson Applauds Taking Away Americans’ Second Amendment Rights

Future Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson praised New Zealand’s ban on semi-automatic long guns, which included a “mandatory government buyback,” during a commencement speech at Harvard University.

Brown-Jackson applauded the comments from leftist New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s commencement speech championing her government “banning military-style semi-automatics and assault rifles.”

Brown-Jackson can be seen in the video applauding the statement by Arden. It comes as an apparent approval of the removal of Second Amendment rights for Americans and a signal of support for President Biden’s anti-gun agenda. 

President Biden called for enacting more restrictions on the Second Amendment in response to the Uvalde shooting during his speech last week.

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House Democrat Floats 1,000% Tax on AR-15-Style Rifles

A key House Democrat is floating a 1,000% tax on AR-15s and similar rifles as part of his party’s latest bid to push gun control in the wake of recent mass shootings.

Rep. Donald Beyer of Virginia, who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, told Business Insider that increasing the cost of the rifles ten-fold could be a deterrent to mass shootings. The tax could raise the price of the rifles to anywhere from $5,000 to as much as $20,000.

“What it’s intended to do is provide another creative pathway to actually make some sensible gun control happen,” Beyer said. “We think that a 1,000% fee on assault weapons is just the kind of restrictive measure that creates enough fiscal impact to qualify for reconciliation.”

A final draft of Beyer’s bill is not yet complete, and it is still unclear when the tax would take effect and what the added revenue would fund, although one possibility is a restitution program for family members of victims killed in shootings. Beyer said that law enforcement agencies and the U.S. military wouldn’t be subject to the tax. The lawmaker added that he believes his bill can clear the House, where Democrats hold a clear majority, and bypass the filibuster in the Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris could cast the deciding vote.

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