More Unintended Consequences

By Tom Rhodes, 1/13/2012

As usual, the emotion driven left has failed to think about or consider the consequences of their actions and desires. All they know is something has to be done about assault weapons. First, assault weapon is a political term used to identify scary looking guns that function just like other guns. You pull the trigger one time and one bullet is fired. This is technology that is well over 100 years old; functionally a double action revolver is identical. In fact experts can fire 6 rounds from a revolver, reload, and fire 6 more rounds in well less than 2 seconds, do the math, that's around 400 rounds per minute. Most normal people can fire 6 rounds, reload and fire another 6 rounds in well under 10 seconds, and with loaders or circlips shoot continuously at a rate of more than 1 round per second with a revolver. But a revolver is not considered an assault weapon, not because it functions differently (one pull = one bang), but because the gun Barney Fife carried on Mayberry RFD just isn't scary.

The most popular "assault weapon" today is the AR-15 and its many variants. Why, because it shoots an inexpensive round, that has minimal recoil, and minimal power, but is reliable, and you can decorate with all sorts of cool stuff. Although not impossible, it is difficult and expensive, but you can hang a red dot scope, laser, flash light, and flash suppressor on a revolver, but even if you do it just doesn't look as cool. None of those scary looking attachments make it shoot any faster or give it any more power. Just like a cool paint job, and a spoiler on your car will look cool, it's not going make it any more powerful or go any faster. And a .223 rifle is a marginally powered weapon with limited range, that isn't powerful enough to be allowed for use as a deer hunting rifle in many states. All the gizmos and plastic handles in the world won't change that, and it still only fires like a revolver (one pull = one bang). In fact according to the FBI, we use rifles, not just assault rifles, less than ½ as often to murder people as we do with our bare hands. Outlawing assault weapons won't make us safer, won't make our children safer, and won't have the desired results that either hoplophobes or the government wants, any more than outlawing spoilers and painted flames on cars will make driving any safer. What more firearm laws will do is result in unintended consequences.

The unintended consequence of restricting semi-automatic weapons and/or making them illegal will be something not thought through by most hoplophobes. The People of the US have a history of ignoring the law and going to extremes to get what they want and need, when as a population we think a law is bad. Consider pot, a mild drug used for eons and legal until relatively recently. The mild pot of 30 years ago has been replace with buds of potency never before imagined and 41% of our population uses or has used it, all from the black market. Today there is very little black market for weapons in the US, because what is available on the open legal market is good enough to meet most people's needs and wants. What black market for guns we do have, is selling what are legal guns to people convicted of smoking pot. We actually had less gun crime when you could order a Tommy Gun out of the Sears catalog than when we instituted the failed 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. If the American people have to break the law to get the weapons they need and want, rather than settle for a relatively mild semi-automatic .223, expect huge amounts of select fire 5.56mm & 7.62mm, and .30 & .50 cal machine guns, to take over what will be a growing black market for weapons. Because when the American people have to resort to the black market, like drugs, the black market will provide more performance for the dollar, the profits will make it worth it.

If you really want massive amounts of very powerful weapons on our streets, I can think of no better way to make that happen then to use the same 'successful' methods used keep pot off our streets. The war on pot laws resulted in massive amounts of very powerful drugs readily available without any regulation or safety controls. The same will happen for firearms. A CNC machine can fit anybody's basement or home shop, the tools and materials to turn out fully automatic machine guns are easily available without any government paperwork. And unlike 50 years ago, you don't have to be a trained machinist to produce quality machined goods. All you need is a computer to direct your CNC machine to make whatever you want. Want a fully automatic 5.57 that fits in the palm of your hand, and holds 20 armor piercing rounds, then download the drawings, put some metal into the machine, push the button, and out pops the parts. Want a full auto Browning machine gun, that shoots a very nasty .30-06 hunting round at 400 rds per minute, the drawings are available on line and have been around for decades in the public domain.

Just like the black market for drugs, the black market for full auto weapons will explode. If you think making meth is easy, gun power and explosives are easier. The materials to make gun powder and explosives are primitive and easily acquired. You'd have to outlaw manure and trees if you wanted to outlaw the materials required to make gun powder.

During prohibition alcoholism skyrocketed, after making pot illegal its use skyrocketed. American's have historically thumbed our nose at the government, even our own. In November and December 2012, after the hoplophobic press and leaders in government threatened the people with restrictions on firearms, specifically assault weapons. The FBI had to do record numbers of approvals to purchase arms. Americans purchased enough arms to put a new firearm in the hand of every soldier in both China and India. Over 3.5 million new weapons were sold in those two months. There are several companies that make high capacity magazines for AR style weapons; the order back log for just the MagPul brand of 30rd magazines is now over 1 million. The ammo and firearm stocks of every WalMart in the nation are depleted. Gun stores have in some instances tripled their prices, but can't keep guns on the shelves. What possesses hoplophobes, statists, and anybody in the government think they are going to pass laws to restrict what the people want, and those laws will be effective.

Already state legislatures and many local Sheriff's have pledged to nullify any federal legislation restricting or registering semi-automatic weapons of any type. The federal government can't afford the unintended costs that will be associated with more firearms laws. It cannot turn millions of people into criminals overnight, nor can it expect compliance. The government can't round up and enforce immigration laws on 12 million illegal aliens who can't vote, enforcing new weapons laws on 100 Million armed citizens who can legally vote will be less than impossible. Going after the guns of the American people has been a dream of statists for eons. Some nations have been able to disarm most of their population. The USA is not like other nations, there aren't massive numbers of people declaring they will get our guns when they pry them from our cold dead hands. That's hyperbole; the American people aren't going to go to war with the government anytime soon. We'll just treat new firearms laws the way we treat zillions of other laws, we'll ignore them. Buy a thingy from over the internet and you are supposed to keep track and pay local sales tax, that's the law, I don't know anybody who obeys it. Put a snow plow on your 4X4 and plow a few of your neighbors driveway for a few bucks, that's income, don't know anybody who pays taxes on that, so is the profits you made from your last garage sale. It's getting harder but I don't know many kids who get permits for lemonade stands.

When statist hoplophobes cry "YOU DON NEED, and assault rifle to hunt, or to stop a burglar" or whatever, they are correct. Defense against a criminal at your home would be better with a 12ga shot gun, than an assault weapon. Defense against some criminal when away from your home would be better with a common hand gun than an assault weapon. But... Defense against a mob when the police have abandoned you and your community would be better done with an assault weapon.

You don't have to look far back in our own history to see this. April 1992 riots broke out all over LA. White motorists were ripped from their vehicles and beaten. Entire neighborhoods were under siege from roving gangs of mostly black men. In the LA neighborhood known as Koreatown, when black looters attacked the Korean shops, the government forces designated to serve and protect those residents and shop owners, the LAPD, ran away and abandoned the residents of Koreatown, leaving them defenseless. But because the residents of Koreatown exercised their natural right to self defense, and had the means of self defense as protected by our Second Amendment, the shop owners and residents of Koreatown were not defenseless, they took up their assault weapons, shotguns, and rifles. They fired hundreds of rounds into the air and ground and drove off the rioting mobs. The rioting mob got a clear message, leave Koreatown alone! So they retreated and instead choose to attack, vandalize, loot, and murder less prepared victims. More than 4000 people were injured and over 60 murdered in the six days of rioting and looting in LA, but the people and property of Koreatown were protected because they mustered men with arms to protect their community where the government refused to do so.

That is an example of a modern day militia; it was well regulated as it didn't shoot into the rioting mob, but used restraint and control to drive them off. This American community took responsibility for their own security. Because the government has no legal obligation to protect them, and the government choose to abandon that community when faced with rioting mobs, that community mustered the militia and defended itself from all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC.

When the government can't or refuses to protect its citizens, the people have no other choice but to take the responsibility upon themselves. In LA's Koreatown The People mustered the militia and defended life and property with assault weapons. Saying that The People don't need assault weapons is a lie born of a fear of responsibility. The fact is every individual and every community is responsible for their own security, our government has proven and shown that and ruled in our courts that they are not and cannot be held responsible for the security of The People. Those fearful hoplophobes wanting more and stricter laws concerning firearms are about to run into a major problem, We The People have over the past 20 years purchased millions of assault weapons, and in the past two months purchased about 3.5 Million more. We The People have spoken, we will not be disarmed.

Demonizing gun owners, who over a hundred million have never committed a crime with our guns is not going to work. If you think the 70% non-compliance rate Canada saw with its firearm registration law was bad, wait till you see how few Americans ignore any registration laws in the USA. Just as there was massive amounts of juries who refused to convict people of violating the Fugitive Slave Act, you will see massive numbers of juries failing to convict their fellow citizens when tried for failing to register their assault weapon. It only takes 1 member of a jury to refuse to convict. If you think the Occupy group exercised civil disobedience, you've seen nothing like the civil disobedience you will see if the US government tries to outlaw or even require registration of semi-automatic weapons in the USA. There may be some mild success in such statist strongholds as New York or Massachusetts, but if the government tells The People of Texas, Florida, Montana, or even Minnesota that they have to register their Ruger Ranch Rifle, and you will see non-compliance on a scale not seen since prohibition. The anti-gun statists have no idea at the size scope and determination of American gun owners.

All the statists know is that they emotionally need something has to be done about assault weapons; ignoring the fact that they are rarely used in any crime, and are the most popular weapons in the USA today. Millions of Americans own assault weapons, millions more know people who own assault weapons, none of whom committed a crime or killed anybody because they had an assault weapon. They just haven't thought it through, nor considered how Americans react to big government in their personal lives. The fact is today a teenager can get pot easier than he can buy an AR-15, the unintended consequence of the push for more gun laws will be that tomorrow he'll be able to get a select fire M4 just as easy as a joint.