America Must Have an Assault Weapons Ban

By Nels Howard, NTD member since 1973

On Monday, July 4, 2022, my wife and I joined the steadily growing group of Americans who have had a member of their family survive a mass shooting. Our son, a professional musician, was in the Highland Park 4th of July Parade when that shooting began. Fortunately, he sensed that the rapid “pops” he heard ahead of him were not fireworks and he immediately, understood the agitated people running toward him meant “shooter.” He ran too, yelling to people along the way to get to shelter. At some point while running, he managed to phone us to tell us what was happening. —- About a half hour later we were relieved to see our son at our front door, quite shaken but safe.

So how do I feel about our family’s personal involvement in this uniquely American nightmare? I am very angry!

After each mass shooting event, our news commentators and public figures furrow their brows and ponder, “What can be done to ensure such tragedy won’t happen in the future?” — Well…for starters, how about simply eliminating the insane proliferation of military-style rifles across our nation. How thick-skulled and foolish can a society continue to be?

The recent bipartisan passage of legislation featuring “red flag” and “state line trafficking” language has been touted as great progress. But realistically, it does little to significantly reduce the odds of future combat weapons being fired into public gatherings.

There are police chiefs from every part of the United States who have repeatedly spoken out against the easy availability of these weapons; weapons that have no logical use within the civilian population. There are war veterans who have explained the total incompatibility of such high powered rifles for hunting, describing how those rifles and ammo were specifically designed to stop an enemy by instantly blowing off parts of an aggressor’s body.

(We saw a recent example of that gruesome power when the parents of a Uvalde’ school shooting victim could only identify their little girl’s pulverized form by recognizing her shoes!)

Grief-stricken families have repeatedly begged members of Congress for federal action, but too many in Congress have remained unmoved. — They say working for a new assault weapons ban would be politically untenable. What cowards! How perverted have their political priorities become!?

This past week we’ve all been reminded that a bipartisan national assault weapons ban actually used to exist in the United States. “The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act,” passed by Congress in 1994, banned the production and sale of assault-style rifles for ten years. Sadly, a “sunset clause” in the act allowed the Republican Bush administration to let the law expire in 2004. Since then, the sight of American men toting assault rifles in public places, to intimidate or to do much worse (see Jan. 6), has become increasingly commonplace. And, not surprisingly, so have mass shootings.

So what can we do now? I suppose the very first thing would be to let your legislators at every government level know that you support a renewed federal assault weapons ban. Even if your officeholders already favor such an action, knowing you support them adds to their energy and commitment.

Also, this fall presents an opportunity to break congressional resistance to a ban on assault weapons. The 2022 Mid-term Election holds a number of U.S. Senate races that can be flipped from Republican to Democrat. —- The memory of Uvalde’s slaughtered children and Highland Park’s devastated families will dog every Purple-state Republican senator and representative who defends a status quo for assault guns.

In the coming weeks, you will be offered opportunities to actively participate in postcard writing and phone calling sessions to voters in states with those vulnerable Republican senators (like Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson). There may be doorbell ringing trips too. Of course congressional contests in our own state will also get organized attention

And here’s some tactical advice: Whenever we talk to anyone about banning assault weapons we should be clear that such restrictions are separate from the much broader and more complex issue of America’s hunting and handgun deaths and injuries. Gun law opponents will try to gain public support by conflating assault rifle ownership with the possession of a hunting rifle or handgun.— Don’t help them do that. — Focusing solely on removing weapons of war from public hands is a problem we can resolve right now.

The truth is, assault rifles in civilian life are only good for giving disaffected American males a feeling of power and sick, cowardly snipers a tool for their fantasies. These guns succeed at spreading fear. That’s it. And, I guarantee you that with every mass shooting in our country, Vladimir Putin and every other democracy-hating autocrat rubs their hands with glee as our nation’s sense of security and freedom is weakened.

Bottom line: With so much tragic history to justify change, any office holder or candidate who still refuses to support banning assault weapons possesses neither the intelligence nor the integrity to occupy an office at any level of government.

In fact, if you know anyone who considers themself a thoughtful North Shore Republican, why not present them with that measure for a candidate’s qualifications. It could help Darren Bailey and candidates like him really lose big in November.