Assaulting Reason

John Hinderaker at Power Line has been one of the best commentators on the inanity of the "assault weapons" ban that was recently introduced by Sen. Diane Feinstein.  Her bill, which supposedly would curb mass shootings, instead would do nothing of the sort.  Much like the assault weapons ban that was in place from 1994 to 2004, the focus is placed on the aesthetics of the weapon and not on the lethality of the weapon.  Hinderaker eleborates on this point:

Here is the list of features that make a semiautomatic rifle an “assault weapon” under Feinstein’s proposal:

All semiautomatic rifles that can accept a detachable magazine and have at least one military feature: pistol grip; forward grip; folding, telescoping, or detachable stock; grenade launcher or rocket launcher; barrel shroud; or threaded barrel. 

Most of these features have nothing to do with making a rifle more lethal; in fact, the only exceptions are the grenade launcher and rocket launcher, which I have never seen on a rifle. Maybe they exist somewhere. But does a pistol grip or a forward grip, or a folding stock, make a rifle more lethal? Of course not. A barrel shroud adds nothing to the lethality of a gun, it simply prevents your fingers from getting hot if they touch the barrel. And barrels are threaded so they can accept silencers, which make guns quieter, not more lethal. So Feinstein’s bill doesn’t make any more sense than the 1994 act did.

And as Hinderaker notes, the implicit focus on bans such as this surely indicates that mass shooting are on the rise, right?  Wrong.  The number of fatalities caused by mass shooting in the past three years are 45, 17, and 8 respectively.  In fact, more people die every year by lightning strikes (and getting struck by subways, Mayor Bloomberg).

This isn't too minimize the affects of mass shooting.  Surely even one is too many.  The problem is the knee-jerk reaction by those who feel that they have to do something.  They don't even care about the affects of the legislation they pass, only that the legislation was passed through Congress and signed by the president.  And to point out the obvious, I am sure these same people clamoring for gun control now just came to this position as a result of Sandy Hook, it's not like they could have had these ideas beforehand....