The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal by a group of gun rights advocates seeking to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines under the Second Amendment.
The decision, a major win for gun safety advocates, leaves in place a ruling by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled that the state may constitutionally prohibit sale and possession of the weapons.
The state legislation, enacted in 2013 after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, specifically targets the AR-15 – the most popular rifle in America with 20-30 million in circulation. They are legal in 41 of the 50 states.
The AR platform is high modifiable, has a nearly infinite number of configurations, can be customized to meet just about any need, and is easily the most widely available sem-automatic rifle on the market. This makes the barrier for entry (to being a mass shooter) much higher.
It really doesn’t. AR-15s are everything you said, but just because you take this one specific model rifle it off the market doesn’t mean there aren’t thousands of lightweight semi automatic rifles that are cheap and just as capable to buy instead. They might not be the gun owner’s version of LEGO, but they’re just as available and just as lethal.
If someone wants to be a mass shooter they have unlimited options in the USA. AR-15s are just so common you see them more. Starting this decade about 1/4 of the firearms produced in the USA are AR-15s.
If 1/4 the cars sold in the USA were Corollas because they’re cheap and easy to drive, would banning Corollas in Maryland reduce car wrecks? No, people would just drive Camrys or Civics or whatever and still drive like idiots.
Driving is a requirement in america for most. Owning a gun is not for anyone I can think of outside employment reasons.
I mostly agree with you (see my other comments in the thread). I was just explaining it from the perspective of the Maryland lawmakers. Although, you’re not entirely correct. It appears that the law is a lot more broad than the title would lead you to believe
Read the law before you assume what it says.
https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2013RS/bills/sb/sb0623f.pdf
It doesn’t take “one specific model” off the market, it redefines assault weapon in the text of the law to include any weapon with certain features.
Well, it defines assault weapons rather than redefines. As that wasn’t previously any kind of classification of gun. Just a scare term that politicians liked to use similar to “super predator”.
No, it redefines it. It repeals the old definition and enacts a new definition. That is redefining. Did you read it?
Yeah, but the law you linked only says what it’s modifying. Did the previous law define the term “assault weapon” in Maryland, too?
Yes. Specifically, assault pistol. This new definition adds assault long gun.
My reply wasn’t in response to the law, but to the guy claiming that by removing AR-15s you increase the barrier to entry to mass shootings.
He was talking about the law, which does more than that. I don’t think anyone here is proposing banning one single model.
If that’s true, then it would be reflected in statistics about states with AR15 and magazine bans. I wonder if that’s really true or if it’s just a matter of being used in attacks because it’s the most common (just like the most common vehicles are probably involved in more crashes - it doesn’t mean they are unusually dangerous compared to other cars, just that there’s more of them).
ARs make up a significantly higher percentage of gun sales than they do in gun deaths or homicides.
It’s just posturing, really. It’s the kind of gun legislation that gets liberals excited, but probably won’t actually change much in the long run
From the article in the original post:
Yeah, and this is one of them. There are plenty of studies showing that gun control works. You don’t need to take my word for it. Here’s a Scientific American article about it:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-is-clear-gun-control-saves-lives1/
But is this specifically one of the ones that worked?
By that, what I mean is, was there a reduction seen in violence done specifically with assault rifles that used the banned features? Reductions in violence using (for example) pistols or shotguns don’t count.
Are you asking because you want to know, or are you asking to sow doubt that clearly effective laws are effective?
How many assault weapons attacks occur in England every year? How does that compare to the US? Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that assault weapons are illegal in England?
(By the way, you can replace England with almost any other country in the world in that paragraph and it still works.)
Also, if you actually want to know, you should be petitioning your government to make it easier to study gun violence. Right now, it’s very hard to study gun violence, thanks to the lobbying efforts of the NRA.
Yes, I want to know. Defend your argument and cite your sources instead of trying to bullshit me with generalities and assumptions.
Trying pretend that just because some gun control laws are effective means that all of them are effective is a fallacy. If anything, your comment is way more likely to have been in bad faith than mine was.
I provided my sources.
I still don’t see what prevents someone from just buying a different model.
Nothing. I didn’t say it was an effective strategy, just what appears to be THE strategy at play
Then you haven’t read the law.
Here:
https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2013RS/bills/sb/sb0623f.pdf
Clearly you are the one who fails to understand this law.
While it bans standard AR-15s, it specifically allows AR-15s with “heavy barrels” referred to in MD as HBARs. Also, the barrel can be easily switched out after purchase.
The law simply took a list of 81 specific models of semi-auto rifles and shotguns and moved them from being “regulated longguns” (which required the same hoops and registration as a handgun) and instead made them illegal to purchase. The law also bans any center-fire semi-auto rifles and shotguns with detachable magazines from having certain cosmetic features.
Those cosmetic features have basically no relevance to lethality and can be added after purchase.
So yes, under this law, people can simply purchase other models not listed that do the same thing.
Ah yes, cosmetic features like… a grenade launcher.
Grenade launchers are regulated as Destructive Devices under the NFA.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
It doesn’t ban the model. It bans a whole bunch of criteria that the model has, and many other guns do too. I’m not saying its impossible to skirt this one legally, but reading the law I’m not seeing a way to have a legal gun that is equally lethal.