Want to Stop Gun Deaths? Stop Talking About ‘Weapons of War.’

By Jonathan Blanks Jonathan Blanks

Within one week of the horrifying massacre of 50 people at
mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
announced a national ban on “military-style semi-automatics” and
“assault rifles”that would include a mandatory
buyback for current owners of those weapons. American gun control advocates and Democratic politicians praised the move,
denouncing the presence of “weapons of war” in civilian hands.

Reasonable people can disagree whether or not semiautomatic
rifles such as the AR-15 should be banned or restricted; some
farmers may use them to keep predators away from livestock, though
it’s also true that they are simply fun to shoot. But
“military-style” is a cosmetic description with no real
meaning. This distinction isn’t just semantic “gunsplaining.” Instead, this rhetoric is a kind
of fear-mongering that takes attention away from the policies that
would be most effective at preventing gun deaths.

Some basic knowledge is necessary to craft sound policy. The
AR-15 is a semiautomatic rifle, meaning most simply that one
trigger pull results in one bullet fired and also sets the gun up
to fire the next round. (Many handguns are also semiautomatic.)

Gun-control advocates
have used the appearance of semiautomatic rifles, which some people
find menacing, to exaggerate the dangers the general public faces
from their existence.

A rifle …Read the Rest

Source:: Cato Institute