Democrat Threatens ‘Revolt’ Against AR-15s
Murphy’s reason for threatening a revolt is not the one he pretended.
Given the purpose for which the Second Amendment was adopted, the Framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights would object to the fact that a few states prohibit Americans from acquiring AR-15s, like the one in the photo above, of former Army Special Forces soldier Mike Green, whose company, Green-Ops.com, trains more than a thousand Americans annually in the defensive uses of firearms.
Fortunately, some of those few states’ bans are being challenged in federal district courts and will likely be appealed to circuit courts and to the Supreme Court over the next year or two. Like one of my lawyer friends says, “Release the Justice Thomas Kraken!”
Not everyone is happy, of course. Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, recently said there will be a “popular revolt” if the Supremes overturn those bans and prohibit all such bans nationwide.
However, Democrats lie about everything, so Murphy’s reason for threatening a revolt is not the one he pretended. He knows there have been no revolts when Congress, the states, and the Court have refused to do Democrats’ bidding on guns. He also knows that the popular reaction to anything concerning gun bans — other than the one of April 19, 1775, anyway — has almost always been that Americans buy more guns. This has certainly been the case with the two types of guns Democrats have tried their hardest to get banned over the last 50 years.
Handguns
In the 1970s and 1980s, Democrats tried to convince Congress and the states to ban handguns. “The final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition . . . totally illegal,” said the leader of the largest anti-gun activist group at the time. However, Congress and every state refused to ban handguns and there were no revolts.
In 1993, Bill Clinton signed the Brady bill, temporarily imposing a waiting period on commercial handgun purchases. The civilian disarmament activist group that promoted the legislation said the purpose of the waiting period was “to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country,” a first step it said would be followed by handgun registration, then confiscation. Instead of handgun purchases slowing down, they accelerated. Congress never imposed the second and third steps of the handgun-confiscation plan, and there were no revolts.
Over time, 41 states have adopted laws providing for handgun carrying permits to be issued to applicants meeting reasonable standards set by each state’s legislature, reversing prohibitions on carrying that were imposed long after the Second Amendment was adopted, and which therefore were at odds with the scope of the right to arms as it was understood by those by whom the amendment was adopted and ratified. One state has never required a permit to carry a handgun and the number of states that don’t require a permit (all but one also have permits for people who want them) has risen to 27. There have been no revolts.
In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Supreme Court significantly undercut Democrats’ longstanding civilian disarmament plan in three ways. First, Heller declared that banning handguns — the centerpiece of the plan in the 1970s and 1980s — was unconstitutional at the federal level and McDonald nullified such bans at the state and local levels, thus nationwide.
Second, in Heller, the Court, consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and legislative history, and the scope of the right to arms in the founding era (the only things that tell us what the Framers intended), said “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” belongs to individuals generally, not limited to those actively serving in a militia.
Third, in Heller, the Court rejected the anti-gunners’ claim, as one activist group put it, “the only reason for guns in civilian hands is for sporting purposes” and “self-defense is not a constitutionally-guaranteed right.” (Note: the anti-gun group that made the “sports” comment was not the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which mislabels AR-15s “Modern Sporting Rifles.”)
To the contrary, the Court said “self-defense” is “the central component” of the right to arms. And because Heller challenged D.C.’s refusal to allow a handgun for protection in the home, the Court added, “handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home” and “a complete prohibition on their use is invalid.”
In 2022, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. v. Bruen, the Court struck down restrictive handgun carry license laws in the last few states that had them.
After Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, there were no revolts.
‘Assault weapons’
Democrats started trying to get “assault weapons” banned in the mid-1980s. California banned the guns in 1989 and New Jersey did so in 1990. The revolt? When both states demanded that owners of the guns register them, the vast majority of owners refused. There have been no revolts in the 40 states that have refused to impose bans.
In 1991, the House of Representatives rejected an “assault weapon” ban by 70 votes. No revolt.
In 1994, Clinton signed Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) anemic “assault weapon ban,” which, for example, prohibited installing a standard adjustable-length stock, flash suppressor, and bayonet mount on an AR-15, but allowed AR-15s to be made and sold otherwise. As a result, in the five months before the “ban” took effect, original-configuration AR-15 purchases increased, and while the “ban” was in effect, Americans bought more than 730,000 slightly modified AR-15s.
AR-15 as made during the 10 years the “ban” was in effect.
CBS, which had propagandized in support of the ban, considered it a joke. In 1995, in a “60 Minutes” segment titled “What Assault Weapons Ban,?” reporter Lesley Stahl said 1994 had been “the best year for the sales of assault weapons ever” and “assault weapons are still (being) sold by the thousands.” The most openly radical anti-gun activist group in the country said the “ban” had been “a ban in name only,” a “fictional ban,” and “a charade.”
The ban expired in 2004 and Congress refused to renew it, let alone impose a more severe ban as Democrats demanded (and have ever since). Thereafter, AR-15s could again be made in their normal configuration and purchases increased again. Though Democrats hate AR-15s almost as much as they lust for murdering the unborn, there has been no revolt over Congress’ refusal to impose a new, more severe ban.
In early 2012, Barack Obama called for banning the manufacture of AR-15s, and in 2016, all candidates for the Democrat presidential nomination did so as well, half of them, including Joe Biden, calling for AR-15s already owned to be confiscated. In both cases, AR-15 purchases increased. Americans now own more than 20 million AR-15s, and that doesn’t count millions of other so-called “assault weapons.”
The ‘revolt’ over crime
Between 1993 and 2013, with handgun and AR-15 purchases soaring throughout, the nation’s total violent crime rate was cut in half. In 2014, the nation’s murder rate fell to its lowest point in American history. Murders and other violent crimes began increasing sharply in 2020 because Democrats encouraged riots, and began defunding local police departments and refusing to prosecute people arrested for violent crimes. The revolt over Democrat pro-crime policies? Americans, including a record number of first-time gun owners, have bought more handguns and AR-15s.
Murphy threatened a “popular revolt” (presumably not to include himself) not because he believes it would happen if the Supreme Court drove a stake through Democrats’ civilian disarmament plan once and for all. He did so because he knows Democrats’ chances in the upcoming elections depend in part on rallying their voter base, which consists largely of hard-core, radical leftists who — like their predecessors in the French Reign of Terror and in other countries’ leftist dictatorships — commit, advocate, or condone violence to achieve their political goals, who are titillated by rhetoric that threatens violence for that purpose, and who are opposed to violence only when they are not the ones committing it.
© 2023 Mark Overstreet