Today was the first round of Senate hearings on new gun-control initiatives. Ostensibly, it was about “gun violence,” but we all know better.
Wayne LaPierre’s testimony is here. He’s dropped much of the vitriol, which is good.
His points:
- expanded background checks won’t work because we’re not prosecuting criminals who try to buy guns now
- semiautomatic firearms are the most common choice for self-defense and hunting by the law-abiding
- we need better mental health reporting to the NICS database
- armed school security is already common and practical
- even the DOJ under Clinton admitted that the 1994 AWB had no measurable effect on violence or crime
(On that last item, Senator Grassley asked Dave Kopel about the 1994 ban, to which Kopel repied, “it was tried with great sincerity … but it didn’t seem to save any lives that the researchers could find.”)
There was audible hissing during LaPierre’s speech. Feinstein groused about the ideological balance, and has promised her own round of supposedly impartial hearings.
Baltimore Chief of Police Jim Johnson claimed that the NICS system had stopped 2 million disqualified individuals from getting guns since 1994. I’m not sure how that works when the system didn’t go online until 1998, but he failed to mention that only 62 of those 2 million cases were ever referred for prosecution. He also quoted the now-ubiquitous (and false) claim that 40% of guns in this country are purchased off the books as justification for universal background checks.
Of course, Gabrielle Giffords and her husband were on hand to act as poster children, and the whole thing had the feel of a dog-and-pony show. Leahy stated that he hoped to have legislation on the floor by February, but it looks like bans are off the table.