Consider two rifles. Both are semi-automatic in function, an action type that was once referred to as "self-loading," as they fire one round per trigger pull, and the action then cycles, driven by either recoil or gas tapped from the barrel, ejecting the spent case and chambering a new round with no action by the shooter. Both rifles will accept detachable magazines. Both rifles are functionally identical, except that one fires a cartridge that is significantly more powerful than the other. This is technology, by the way, that has been around since the 19th century.
One of these rifles is ignored by the "assault weapons ban" advocates despite its functional attributes. The other is demeaned, described hysterically as a "weapon of war," and is the subject of repeated attempts to outlaw it.
The first rifle, the one largely ignored by the gun-banners, is the Winchester 100. The second? The famous AR-15 pattern rifle.
This discontinuity — the fact that one rifle is ignored by the gun-grabbers while they have a laser focus on the AR-15 models — is just another example of the willful ignorance most of these people have about guns in general. On Wednesday, in a Senate hearing, Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) used his questioning of Biden nominee for the Seventh Circuit Court Nancy Maldonado on her previous support for "assault weapons" bans and revealing her inability to even define the term "assault weapon."
WATCH:@SenJohnKennedy: “You said, ‘assault weapons may be banned because they’re extraordinarily dangerous and are not appropriate for legitimate self-defense purposes.’ Tell me what you meant by assault weapons?”
— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) March 20, 2024
Biden’s Seventh Circuit judge nominee Nancy Maldonado: “I’m not… pic.twitter.com/1ctY2E64IO
Here's the quote from Judge Maldonado that Senator Kennedy (who is, by the way, a national treasure) homed in on:
“You said, ‘assault weapons may be banned because they’re extraordinarily dangerous and are not appropriate for legitimate self-defense purposes.’ Tell me what you meant by assault weapons?”
Nancy Maldonado did everything but a series of backflips to try to do anything but answer that question directly, and the reason for that was painfully obvious; at one point, she even admits, "I'm not a gun expert."
Well, that much is certain.
See Related: Gun Rights Groups Drawing a Bead on Illinois 'Assault Weapons' Law, Taking Issue to Supreme Court
This is part and parcel of a larger problem: Politicians and jurists widely trying to influence policy and render decisions about matters they know nothing about. Case in point: Consider that darling piece of legislation of the left, the 1994 federal "assault weapon" ban. That law defined an "assault rifle" thusly:
Semi-automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and has two or more of the following:
- Folding or telescoping stock
- Pistol grip
- Bayonet mount
- Flash hider or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
- Grenade launcher
What happened, following the passage of this law, was that the exact same models of rifles that this law was aimed at (yes, that play on words was intentional) simply were introduced without the offending features: thumbhole stocks instead of stocks with separate pistol grips, no folding stocks, no flash hiders, and no "grenade" launchers. And certainly no bayonet lugs.
Yes, you read that right. Bayonet lugs. If there's one thing the early '90s were known for, it was the horrible instances of criminal gangs fixing bayonets, forming lines, and charging each other, or worse, innocent bystanders. The number of innocents slaughtered in mass bayonet charges in those years was precisely... Zero.
Yet people like Nancy Maldonado wonder why the pro-Second Amendment community doesn't take them seriously when they expound on the horrors of "assault weapons."
Senator Kennedy is to be (again) congratulated for exposing this Biden judiciary nominee's ignorance on this issue. The problem we face is this: She's got an awful lot of company in her ignorance.
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