The US Supreme Court has declined to put a temporary hold on an Illinois law that bans the sale of assault-style weapons and a variety of other guns and accessories.
The law will require existing owners of the restricted items to register them by 1 January.
A gun rights group and the owner of a gun shop have sued to stop the implementation of the law.
Their case has consistently been rebuffed by lower courts.
The legislation took effect in January and sales of the restricted guns were stopped immediately.
I really wish gun-control advocates would not use terms like “assault-style weapons”. What is an assault-style weapon? It sounds like it might be something scary and associated with war, but it’s not a technical term. It’s not even a term that actually means anything specific. Saying it makes the speaker sound ignorant and inspires absolutely no confidence that whatever law is being proposed makes any reasonable distinctions between which weapons should be legal and which should be illegal.
Here’s how the law defines “assault weapons.”
https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=072000050K24-1.9
I’m curious how this law as written would apply to one specific firearm off the top of my head, skimming through the specific firearms it names as assault weapons I noticed that it calls out “all Uzi types.”
At one point in, I think, the 90s some company, I want to say Mossberg but don’t quote me on that, was importing the IWI/IMI Jericho 941 (an otherwise pretty normal pistol that otherwise wouldn’t fall under the assault weapon category) and branding it as the “Uzi Eagle.” Does that make it an “Uzi type,” even though it has no real connection mechanicaly to other Uzis?
And if so, since the section uzis fall under is phrased as
All of the following pistols, copies, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles with the capability of any such weapon thereof:
What would that mean for when the same gun when it’s been imported branded as a Jericho or some other name? And since the Jericho is essentially a clone of the CZ-75, what would that mean for the CZ and other CZ clones?
I’ll put an attempted common sense definition out there as a straw man (fully aware of Cunningham’s law): it’s a rifle typically featuring a pistol grip and detachable magazine.
The definition needs to be intentionally vague to capture a myriad of existing designs (and the legal workarounds). I suspect there are “assault rifles” that don’t fit into this vague definition, and equally importantly: vice versa (e.g. the Barret 82A1 can’t realistically be considered an “assault rifle” by common sense).
And therein lies the problem: by being only reasonably specific, we provide too many opportunities for shenanigans (cf. Formula 1 in the 70s and 80s). But without a reasonably strict definition, we’re also creating a reasonably litigious atmosphere (“no sir, we intended this rifle for small to medium game hunting”).
I think you’re not wrong about what an assault rifle is, but assault weapons are not assault rifles, which were already effectively inaccessible to civilians nationwide before this law was passed. The specific law being discussed here classifies, among other things, a rifle with a pistol grip and a pistol with a threaded barrel (but of course not a pistol with a pistol grip) as assault weapons - what do the two have in common in terms of function or purpose other than looking scary to the general public.
This is a rhetorical trick. We do not need a technical definition of “assault weapon”. We need a legal one. The legal definition here was written by the Illinois legislature and seems to be upheld by the courts.
If someone asks you for a technical definition for a gun law, see if the relevant legal definition exists.
It was upheld, but it’s also theater, you need to understand. Without fail, every time a state legislature engages in “assault weapon” bans, without fail, they:
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Ban a bunch of weapons that have never been used in a mass shooting.
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Fail to ban a bunch of weapons that have been used in mass shootings.
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Fail to future-proof the law in any way, so new firearms that will become popular in mass shootings are not banned.
The net result is new restrictions with no relation to actual gun violence. They could pass laws addressing the actual problems at hand, like lowering the bar for access to mental health care. They choose not to.
Oh cool. Another rhetorical trick. The law isn’t perfect. So anyone that supports it looks foolish.
Bonus rhetorical trick. Let’s talk about mental health. Aka, change the topic and ignore that one too.
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Just goes to show how big of a portion of gun control advocates don’t fully understand the thing they are trying to control.
I myself own firearms and am also a gun control supporter but so much of the attempts to control end up being quite ineffective and not impactful to what they are trying to stop/limit.
I get it though, at this point emotional decisions and motivations are unavoidable. Combine that with republicans actively trying to destroy gun control new and old, it’s no wonder people end up with a less informed but just as strong take in the opposite direction.
So like should we define them based on theoretical murders per minute they could achieve!
Possibly. The gun used in Las Vegas was a “semiautomatic”. Fitted with a bump stock it shoots like a fully automatic. So the fire rate could be a useful tool.
Maybe we could compare them to other deadly things like a car or a knife?
Cars and knives have many uses. As far as I can tell, guns have four and half of those involve either killing or threatening to kill someone. The other two are target shooting and hunting, both of which have resulted in people being killed.
Not exactly comparable to cars and knives.
Maybe swords then?
That would certainly be a fairer comparison, although I am guessing the number of people killed by swords in this country is far lower than the number killed by guns.
As an “assault-style” gun owner in Illinois, good.
