Assault Weapons Ban Pulled from Main Congressional Gun Violence Package

The Assault Weapons Ban, the most prominent and contentious element of the comprehensive collection of bills to address gun violence will not be a part of the larger, consolidated bill that works its way through Congress over the next few weeks.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid informed Senator Feinstein that the AWB would not be a part of the body of the bill taking shape in Congress this week but instead would be included as an amendment…a sure sign that it has little chances to pass. It will either become a negotiating point in the overall bill or will just be voted down as it has no support from the Republican side of the Senate as well as no support in the house. If included in the overall bill it would likely kill the entire thing.

As of today the comprehensive bill has not been posted to Thomas.LOC.GOV. A followup will come from Addicting Info as soon as the bill is assembled and put forward.

The comprehensive bill is expected to address more stringent, broad background checks for gun buyers, a school safety measure and to make gun trafficking and straw purchasing a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison. The bill will likely incorporate many of the 40 initial bills that were submitted to Congress in January and February of this year.

The bill is also likely to address magazine capacity of both rifles and pistols and to beef up the flawed NICS Firearms Background Check System. It is unknown if provisions will include coordination with states to include some level of mental health reporting. Psychologists with whom I have spoken on the subject suggest that including mental health records will be an uphill battle on many levels including the very important element of psychologists expected to predict degrees of lethality.

The Assault Weapons Ban is the most prominent of the many bills introduced, addressing the future of high capacity semi automatic rifles, with the most common being the variants of the AR-15. While assault weapons [real or semi automatic versions] are a real danger for mass murder, the more important issues are to address getting guns out of the hands of those who should not have them through closing loopholes eliminating as many of the backdoor sales, gun show sales and person to person sales that are so common and to enhancing background checks by both beefing up the current system to include domestic violence orders and mental health records and including that background check in ALL purchases, not just at licensed gun shops. The comprehensive bill, sans Assault Weapons Ban will have a chance to impact the 98% of deaths by firearms each year that are not mass murder, that are not perpetrated by assault weapons.

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McAllister is a life long liberal, environmentalist, Eagle Scout, and even gun owner – born in Harlan, Kentucky and has lived in Southern California, New York City and now resided in Lexington, Kentucky as a Systems Analyst.

You can read more of McAllister’s observations and opinions at Shoot From the Left Hip.