PA Bill Number: HB2311
Title: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program.
Description: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program. ...
Last Action: Laid on the table
Last Action Date: Sep 23, 2024
Don't revoke right to own modern semi-automatics :: 07/20/2016
Once again, there is a politically motivated call for the Florida Legislature to ban so-called assault weapons. This is nothing less than a demand to revoke the right of law-abiding citizens to own modern rifles.
The topic of gun control is emotionally charged. So it is important to separate the facts from the rhetoric of fear and crisis that so dominates any discussion about this issue.
All modern semi-automatic rifles function the same way. They can fire only one round per trigger pull. Despite what one local politician recently claimed, these firearms cannot spray bullets at the blistering rate of 700 rounds per minute. Anyone who says they can is lying, engaging in fear-mongering.
But not all modern semi-automatic rifles look the same. Some are housed in warm polished wood. They look right at home prominently displayed over a fireplace. Others are housed in cold, molded, black plastic, with an ergonomic pistol grip or a stock that is adjustable to fit the hands of different-sized people. The former are portrayed as traditional, the kind of rifle that our grandfathers would have owned. The latter are portrayed as frightening, with their ugly, utilitarian design. However, styles change over time. Today's cars do not look like our grandfathers' cars, but they still perform the same function. Similarly, the ugly black rifle performs the same function as its polished wood predecessors, with no greater lethality.
So why ban these so-called assault weapons if they function just like the traditional semi-automatic rifles? Because when people are scared, angry or fed up, some believe that they must do something, anything, rather than doing nothing — even if that something is just a useless placebo. This is security theater, a raw appeal to irrational fear.
In the early-morning hours of June 12, a man with a depraved heart and no regard for the sanctity of human life murdered 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando. In response, some scared, angry and fed-up people are seeking to do something, anything, rather than do nothing.
And because no law can eliminate the inhuman hatred that was the actual source of this tragedy, some propose to ban modern semi-automatic rifles. These firearms can be segregated based on their color and frightening looks.
The revocation of the right to own a modern rifle has been characterized as a "common-sense" restriction on the right to keep and bear arms — with the unspoken corollary that, if you oppose this restriction, you must have no "common sense." And it is easy to label these rifles with the evil moniker, "assault weapons," so that any opposition to banning them can be marginalized. Because, after all, what kind of sensible person needs an assault weapon?
At every opportunity, politicians refer to modern semi-automatic rifles as "assault weapons" or "weapons of war." By labeling them this way, they can easily advocate banning them.
But no politicians would dare stand up and announce to the cameras, "Now is the time to take away the right of the people to own any rifle designed after 1945," even though that is exactly what they seek.
Make no mistake, a ban on so-called assault weapons is a revocation of the individual right to own a modern rifle for the protection of self and family from crime, lawlessness and tyranny, in whatever forms they may arrive. Even if you choose not to exercise this right today, remember that times change, and decisions made today have far-reaching consequences for the future.
We owe it to ourselves and society to make an informed decision based on facts, and not to be manipulated by irrational fear or anger.
Rights once lost are lost forever, and we cannot revoke the individual right to own a modern rifle.
Ernest J. Myers is an Orlando attorney.
