HB 22-02: Federal Assault Weapon and Automatic Weapon Ban Act (Passed)

[Blair]

A ban coming into place one week after the President's signature would be interesting- it takes a lot longer for my local council to change the type of recycling bins we have.

[Blair]

"make laws necessary for the enforcement of the Constitution "

This law enforces the constitution by keeping section 7 of the bill of rights properly constrained to the limits intended by the leftist government that led the writing thereof.

I also remind the Honorable Fhtagn that the Supreme Court is 4-1 Left.

The court is not 4-1 left. It's made up of 5 Justices who've all proved to take different decisions on the merits of cases; me & Windjammer (two ex labor chairs) reached different decisions on a case involving Labor!

[Blair]

fhtagn as someone who is undecided could you outline what is unconstitutional about this bill?

[Blair]

Federal Assault Weapon and Automatic Weapon Ban Act

SECTION I: Name and Intent

A.) This bill may be cited as the Federal Assault Weapon and Automatic Weapon Ban Act.

Section II: Criteria

1.) There shall be a nationwide ban on the purchasing, manufacturing, sale, or possession of assault weapons. The criteria laid out in Section 3A to shall be used to classify assault weapons.

2.) The prohibition does not apply to a firearm that is (1) manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action; (2) permanently inoperable; (3) an antique; or (4) a rifle or shotgun specifically identified by make and model.

3.) Any of the following features shall classify a firearm as an 'Assault Weapon'.

A.) Any semi automatic rifle which has a High Capacity Magazine (see Section III)

B.) Any firearm which has a bayonet lug.

C.) Any firearm which has a threaded barrel.

D.) Any semi-automatic pistol with a detachable magazine in front, or outside of the pistol grip.

E.) Any semi-automatic pistol with a detachable magazine which can accept more than 15 rounds.

F.) Any semi-automatic shotgun with one or more of the following criteria; a pistol grip, a forward grip, a detachable magazine or a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.

SECTION III: High Capacity Magazine Ban

A.) A large capacity ammunition feeding device is hereby classified as any device including a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, helical feeding device, or similar device, including any such device joined or coupled with another in any manner, that has an overall capacity of, or that can be readily restored, changed, or converted to accept rounds above the limits in Section 2 A, E and F.

C.) The above shall not apply to the possession of any large capacity ammunition feeding device otherwise lawfully possessed on or before the date of enactment of this Act.

Section IV

A.) This Act shall not apply to any firearm purchased, owned, manufactured or possessed before the enactment of this act.

B.) This Act shall not apply to any firearm purchased, owned, manufactured or possessed for law enforcement or Military purposes.

SECTION V: TIMING

1. This bill shall take effect 6 months after being enacted.

[Blair]

aye

[Blair]

Given that supporters of this bill have still failed to do so, and that no one has outlined a valid reason for this bill, even with the amendment, to pass, I'm going to motion to table again.

Hi Fghtan I'm still waiting for a post that you promised about why you saw the bill as unconstitutional

fhtagn as someone who is undecided could you outline what is unconstitutional about this bill?

Not completely ignoring this. Been a busy few days IRL and plan to address it within the next couple days.

Sorry, not trying to ignore stuff. Work and medical stuff IRL has been crazy and I've been involved with some RL political stuff that's taken up quite a bit of free time. I have the full response saved on my laptop, just haven't had a chance to use it lately. Will be up in the next few days.

I waited a week before doing anything on this bill because I was waiting for your response. I'm a bit upset you've now motioned to table when there clearly isn't the votes for it & when I waited in good faith for your response.

[Blair]

Offering the following amendment

Federal Assault Weapon and Automatic Weapon Ban Act

SECTION I: Name and Intent

A.) This bill may be cited as the Federal Assault Weapon and Automatic Weapon Ban Act.

Section II: Criteria

1.) There shall be a nationwide ban on the purchasing, manufacturing, sale, or possession of assault weapons. The criteria laid out in Section 3A to shall be used to classify assault weapons.

2.) The prohibition does not apply to a firearm that is (1) manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action; (2) permanently inoperable; (3) an antique; or (4) a rifle or shotgun specifically identified by make and model.

3.) Any of the following features shall classify a firearm as an 'Assault Weapon'.

A.) Any semi automatic rifle which has a High Capacity Magazine (see Section III) which can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

B.) Any firearm which has a bayonet lug.

C.) Any firearm which has a threaded barrel.

D.) Any semi-automatic pistol with a detachable magazine in front, or outside of the pistol grip.

E.) Any semi-automatic pistol with a detachable magazine which can accept more than 15 rounds.

F.) Any semi-automatic shotgun with one or more of the following criteria; a pistol grip, a forward grip, a detachable magazine or a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.

SECTION III: High Capacity Magazine Ban

A.) A large capacity ammunition feeding device is hereby classified as any device including a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, helical feeding device, or similar device, including any such device joined or coupled with another in any manner, that has an overall capacity of, or that can be readily restored, changed, or converted to accept rounds above the limits in Section 2 A, E and F.

C.) The above shall not apply to the possession of any large capacity ammunition feeding device otherwise lawfully possessed on or before the date of enactment of this Act.

Section IV

A.) This Act shall not apply to any firearm purchased, owned, manufactured or possessed before the enactment of this act.

B.) This Act shall not apply to any firearm purchased, owned, manufactured or possessed for law enforcement or Military purposes.

SECTION V: TIMING

1. This bill shall take effect 6 months after being enacted.

[Blair]

AYE

I will be addressing this bill in full- 10 was the number in the legislation drafted that I was basing this on and I felt for continuity it made sense to have it at the same number that was in the legislation for shotgun rounds.

I had 15 for pistols because a large number of more modern handguns tend to use a larger capacity magazines than 8 or 10 rounds.

I also reject the idea this is anything about Liberal fearmongering- I'm not a liberal & I never have been- I'm a proud social democrat.

[Blair]

prepare for a very long floor speech from me on this

[Blair]

When this bill arrived on the floor as it was written I would have voted against it; but the amendments I've put in have moved this to being acceptable in my view.

By grandfathering in protections & ensuing that people who already own and bought these weapons legally aren't prosecuted I believe it solves one of the legal issues; I actually disagreed with Tack's earlier point that we shouldn't judge the constitutionally of this bill- I think we should, and I believe it is constitutional. I've read some articles specifically on this issue of assault weapon bans & as someone who have served on the court I would be more than happy to defend this.

Now I could cite an intolerable number of journal & news articles about the impact that both the RL Federal & state wide assault weapon bans (like the quoted extract below)

We found that public mass shootings — which we defined as incidents in which a gunman killed at least six people in public — dropped during the decade of the federal ban. Yet, in the 15 years since the ban ended, the trajectory of gun massacres has been sharply upward, largely tracking the growth in ownership of military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Using the Mother Jones mass shooting database, we identified the number of gun massacres over a 35-year period. (And following the F.B.I.’s approach, we excluded crimes of armed robbery and gang or domestic violence in evaluating public active shooter incidents.) Compared with the decade before its adoption, the federal assault weapon ban in effect from September 1994 through 2004 was associated with a 25 percent drop in gun massacres (from eight to six) and a 40 percent drop in fatalities (from 81 to 49).

   

But of course we have a different approach in Atlasia; indeed I support our existing framework and support that the right to own firearms exist as a constitutionally guaranteed right; but as I've said before it's a right which in my view should exist with certain common sense restrictions- hence why we don't allow fully automatic weaponry and why we have a licensing system.

So why an Assault Weapon Ban? Frankly I believe that firearm use should be tailored around what it's designed for; home defence & hunting. You don't need in my view need a 15 round semi automatic rifle for hunting; nor can I see the reasonable defence for having a semi automatic shotgun that holds more than 10 rounds.

I support this bill because I believe that assault weapons should be limited to our police & our military and because I believe the evidence suggests that an assault weapon ban would lower the number of gun deaths & reduce the number of large mass casualty shootings; we will no doubt fall into the rather juvenile well if you ban x they'll just use Y but frankly I think in this case the assault weapons should be taken off the table.

[Blair]

motioning for a final vote

[Blair]

I motion to withdraw my cloture motion

[Blair]

aye

[Blair]

Aye

[Blair]

I don't support this.

Unless I am mistaken, we already have a universal background check system and so long as we can ensure the people buying guns have a clean record and who know the safety requirements, I think the right to own guns should be respected. The issue of gun violence is very serious and a lot more can be done to reduce gun deaths. There are many underlying issues that may lead someone to commit a gun crime: mental health issues, their financial situation, their social relationships and even if this bill was extremely successful in its aims, these crimes would move to other weapons, like knives. Obviously, gun crime and knife crime are not equivalent in terms of the damage they cause, but the point I'm highlighting is there are other approaches to dealing with this issue which aren't going to be so divisive and which won't require an authoritarian approach to policing.

Also curious if the current administration threatened thumb (which is a very likely scenario)

To quote the great Emily Thornberry you can't just go around making sh**t up about us.

And to quote Gordon Brown your other comment was frankly bigoted.