All the radical nullificationists in the South Dakota Legislature may be able to storm back to whatever Special Session calls this spring and shout “We told you so!” After failing to pass a raft of bills calling for South Dakota to ignore federal law and executive orders, those secessionists can cry that President Joe Biden is doing what they warned would happen: coming for their ghost guns!
The president’s new policies attempt to do two things: limit the availability of certain weapons and encourage states to enact gun control legislation on their own. Here’s what Biden implemented Thursday:
- Stopping the sale of “ghost guns:” Ghost guns are handmade firearms sold in kits or 3D printed, meaning they don’t come with a serial number and the government has no ability to trace them. Biden wants to curtail their use, mandating serial numbers be stamped on each part and subjecting buyers to background checks.
- New regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces: Stabilizers can turn pistols into veritable short-barreled rifles, weapons that are more accurate and deadlier than a handgun. Biden wants to treat them as such. Pistols with attached stabilizing braces will now require registration to own, and buyers will need to go through a far more thorough application process.
- Encouraging “red flag” laws: Biden is asking the Justice Department to draw up model legislation to assist states in implementing so-called red flag laws. These laws would allow the courts to bar people from carrying guns if they are shown by family or law enforcement to present a danger to themselves or others.
- Federal studies on gun trafficking: For the first time in 20 years, the ATF and the Justice Department will be charged with issuing annual reports on gun trafficking.
- Investments in community violence intervention programs: Five federal agencies are being directed to send support to these programs. In the infrastructure proposal Biden announced last week, he proposed $5 billion toward community violence intervention efforts, to be paid out in the next eight years [Gregory Svirinovskiy, “Biden’s Executive Actions Tackle a Small Part of America’s Enormous Gun Problem,” Vox, 2021.04.08].
A number of gun nuts in the South Dakota Legislature would have blocked any enforcement of President Biden’s gun orders by declaring the right to bear arms absolute. (First they came for our guns, then they came for our wrenches and hammers….)
President Biden is ready for that inevitable and misplaced Second Amendment fetishism our bang-up legislators will raise:
Nothing, nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment. They’re phony arguments suggesting that these are Second Amendment rights at stake for what we’re talking about. But no amendment, no amendment to the Constitution is absolute. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater. Recall the freedom of speech. From the very beginning, you couldn’t own any weapon you wanted to own. From the very beginning the Second Amendment existed, certain people weren’t allowed to have weapons. So the idea is just bizarre to suggest that some of the things we’re recommending are contrary to the Constitution [President Joe Biden, remarks from White House, as transcribed by Rev.com, 2021.04.08].
And how better to properly define the limits of a Constitutional right than in the context of an epidemic killing thousands of Americans a year…
Every day in this country, 316 people are shot. Every single day. 106 of them die every day. Our flag was still flying at half staff for the victims of the horrific murder of eight primarily Asian-American people in Georgia when 10 more lives were taken in a mass murder in Colorado. You probably didn’t hear it, but between those two incidents, less than one week apart, there were more than 850 additional shootings. 850 that took the lives of more than 250 people and left 500 injured. This is an epidemic, for God’s sake, and it has to stop [President Biden, 2021.04.08].
…and costing the nation hundreds of billions of dollars in preventable harm:
Gun violence in America, for those you think of this from an economic standpoint, listening to me, estimated to cost the nation 280 billion. Let me say it again, $280 billion a year. You say, “How could that be, Joe?” Hospital bills, physical therapy, trauma counseling, legal fees, prison costs, and the loss of productivity, not to mention the psychological damage done to the children who live in these cities, watching this happen, knowing someone it happened to. This gun violence in our neighborhood is having a profound impact on our children, even if they’re never involved in pulling the trigger or being the victim on the other side of a trigger. For a fraction of the cost of gun violence, we can save lives, create safe and healthy communities and build economies that work for all of us and save billions of American dollars in the meantime [President Biden, 2021.04.08].
President Biden is proposing real solutions to real problems. Expect South Dakota legislators to push to hijack the Special Session to posture for their Gooney McBuckshot/insurrectionist base and their donors in the gun lobby (which, not tangentially, is morally and financially bankrupt).
The problem I have is the first two executive orders are the legal equivalent of “Thoughts and Prayers.”
Something to make people feel like they are doing something, when they are, in fact, doing exactly nothing.
While I understand their intent, they are not going to have any real positive impact.
The Ghost Gun idea was good…It is much too easy to make this stuff yourself. Unless they are going to start banning private sales of 3D printers and stop all sales of individual components, all this is going to do is make people order parts from multiple vendors as opposed to buying it in one spot. Someone who is trying to make/buy the “Ghost Gun” isn’t going to be stopped by this order.
The pistol stabilizing braces order is a joke. The brace is a piece of plastic or metal with no moving parts. You could make the equivalent of one of these in your garage in an afternoon with a skillsaw, some plywood, bolts, and some sandpaper. Yes, if someone spends a lot of time practicing with one they could become marginally more accurate with one, but sacrificing concealability and ease of handling — the only reason someone would be using a pistol as opposed to a long gun in the first place.
I like what he’s TRYING to do. His last three orders should be no-brainers. They could be easy to push, easy to sell to the general public, and could absolutely do good for the country.
But the first two orders are going to do nothing but provide ammunition to for the people saying that he’s engaging in overreach and doesn’t understand the issue. This is the problem that the gun control movement has. We have a tendency to push for big symbolic things, as opposed to pushing the smaller, less sexy, less exciting things that would actually work.
Well OK yes a crazed killer could bludgeon a victim to death with a wrench or hammer…but mowing down multiple humans in mere seconds…well of course that is going to require an assault weapon and no need to offer lame excuses…you know exactly what that is. That is the preferred style of mass killing weapon that the NRA and GOP demand unrestricted and unregulated access to by everyone and anyone anytime.
Kristi Noem stupidly laments that the Biden gun control actions infringe on her 2nd amendment rights. Well, I’ll tell you what infringes on OUR rights…. getting your spouse or sibling or parent or child mowed down while grocery shopping or working or attending school or any of a hundred other ‘dangerous locations’ now days. So Kristi are you happy with the slaughter of innocent people by assault weapons? Or if not,do you even have a plan? If you don;t have any legislation or directive to offer please just shut up. We are wise to and tired of your political posturing.
We have a 2nd Amendment advocate problem: they consistently argue that there can be no infringement on gun ownership because gun ownership is a right explicitly stated in the 2nd Amendment.
There are indeed many dangerous people out there who want to buy lots of guns and use them – we see the result on the news almost every tragic day. And almost everyone in the neighborhood (and in the family) knows who they are. And are often afraid of them. Even often plead for help. But – once again – nothing can be done about it because 2nd Amendment advocates consistently argue that there can be no infringement on gun ownership because gun ownership is a right explicitly stated in the 2nd Amendment. Later, of course, after the shooting, everyone says “well, why didn’t the police [somebody] do something about it?” Because – each and every time people try to pass legislation about it, the NRA and their supporters say, “it’s a slippery slope; it’s our right; you can’t infringe; it’s in the constitution!”
Meanwhile, many of the same people say that voting is a privilege, not a right, despite the fact that voting is a right explicitly stated in the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments. No matter what the level of mass shootings or suicides or gun violence in this country, the majority of conservatives accept it as one of the risks of living in our democracy. However, even a rumor of election fraud brings out conservative demands to tighten the election process through multiple restrictions, laws, ID requirements, and now even criminalizing giving food and water to people waiting in line to vote.
At this point I am fed up to the back teeth with the “slippery slope” argument used to protect anyone and everyone’s right to buy and own any type of firearm whatsoever. (BTW, I worked in the judicial system for years in Tennessee and South Dakota; I know whereof I speak). And I am not alone.
Eve’s observation comparing the single reference to gun ownership in only one Constitutional Amendment with the multiple reference to the right to to vote in at least four Constitutional Amendments is extremely perceptive and should be a real call to arms for 2nd Amendment folks. After all, anyone that honestly believes a Constitutional right, such as owning an AR15, AK47 or other gun, must never be infringed in any way, certainly will publicly oppose any infringement on the Constitutional right to vote with the same fervor that they oppose any restrictions on gun ownership!
Well folks as a liberal I can say you can always invest in the gunners craziness. A transfer of wealth always helps.
If we put most any group of people together, and had a reasoned discussion about gun ownership, I believe even (rational) gun ownership advocates would be pulled into some positions of SOMEONE who should not own a gun or SOME gun that ought not be in the hands of people.
The real problem is that we do not live in a nation of rational discussion and we are not governed by “the people.” Political ideologies can govern with the consent of the minority, and that means bad policy — not just on guns.
Eve’s point about a Constitutional right that cannot be infringed seems reinforced by the very fact that this was NOT an original Constitutional right, but itself an Amendment – an addition to the original Constitution.
It is a very real example of intentional political divisiveness by Roberts SCOTUS. We must remedy the stolen/rushed seats (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Conan-Barrett).
Anthony Renli –
-You can say and think and vote for whatever you choose.
-However, after Trump was defeated and after his exhibition of Nazi German leadership, we the majority have zero obligation to listen to you or explain our actions.
-President Biden represents the end of the Reagan era of small government.
-Joe will be the biggest agent of progress since FDR and LBJ.
-Change is happening fast and spending will be paid by corporations who’ve been on a free ride too long.
-Change is very hard for the SD majority. We care about you but you’re ideas aren’t important or valid, for at least two years.
-Watch and bitch all you choose.
your
When I have listened to a group of ‘gun rights’ defenders talk about the possible infringement of their ‘rights’ I am reminded of earlier hysterical causes. Such as the time of great fear and ignorance that brought on the Salem Witch Trials. People let their fear take them beyond reason before they join together into a great irrational mob. Guns have taken too many of us and will take many more while we dither about waiting for a Congress more motivated by their lust for power than by preserving the lives of Americans.
There’s too much money 💰 to be made in the gun industry. Mass killings are good for business, Americans are just too darn addicted to their guns and have been brainwashed by the NRA to fear any kind of gun control laws. Sick country we live in when our politicians favor money over people.
Again, back in the ’60’s, the NRA was all about restricting the right to own/carry guns!
https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-support-mulford-act