Joe Biden on Guns

Introduction:

Being that it is an election year, politics is very much at the front-and-center of discourse in 2020, next to the coronavirus. The presidential electoral field has pretty much narrowed down to just Joe Biden and Donald Trump. On the Democratic side, this electoral cycle has brought on a clear conflict between the establishment centrists, think Hillary Clinton types, and the progressive leftists such as Bernie Sanders or, to a lesser extent, Elizabeth Warren. Because the field has narrowed down to just Joe Biden, he has to try his best (read: his aides and staffers have to do their best) to make him appealing to progressives so as to bring everyone under a single banner against Trump. This relates to the RGG in that Biden's campaign has release a detailed outline of his far-reaching policies on guns. These policies would affect me, and I'm sure many of you as well, so lets take a look. 

Details:

Point 1: "Hold gun manufacturers accountable"

This policy point likely draws inspiration from the attempted lawsuits resulting from the fallout after Sandy Hook. Family members of victims sought to go after the manufacturer of the rifle that was used in the tragedy. Biden is looking to make gun manufacturers civilly liable for their products' use. Although I have nothing but sympathy for the victims and their families, it is hard for me to follow the logic that this is derived from. I don't really understand what makes gun manufacturers different than any other manufacturer of something potentially dangerous. If the advertising for firearms is a problem, then surely alcoholic beverage manufacturers shouldn't advertise drinking as being fun and enjoyable, especially when alcohol related deaths are the third most common type of preventable death, at approximately 88,000 a year in the United States.

Point 2: "Get weapons of war off our streets"

I think by the wording of the policy point, you can see where this is going. This policy point goes after "assault weapons" and standard capacity magazines. The first subpoint of the plot is to make an assault weapons ban that prevents manufacturers from making minor changes to circumvent the law. These types of changes would be things like non-threaded barrels on AR15's with thumbhole stocks. Biden is looking to ban both the manufacture AND sale of "assault weapons" with this policy point. Under this same bullet point, Biden also calls for a ban on the importation of "assault weapons" which, obviously unbeknownst to him, is already a thing. This is why AK's are shipped to the US in a 'sporterized' configuration and then modified. 

The 2nd and third bullet points for Biden's AWB would likely create millions of potential felons out of thin air. The policy aims to regulate "assault weapons" under the national firearms act. This would mean that your AR15 is regulated the same way as a machinegun or a suppressor, requiring registration and a $200 tax stamp. The bullet point concludes in what is effectively an ultimatum, saying that anyone with an "assault weapon" and a 30 round magazine has, "two options: sell the weapons to the government, or register them under the National Firearms Act." If Biden wins the election and remembers to go through with this policy point, I wish him all the luck in the world to effectively confiscate or register the millions of AR15's, serialized and unserialized, that are in common use in the United States.

The Rest:

The rest of the policy is mostly a mix of gun control measures that we have seen pushed before: Red Flag Laws, the mythical gun-show-loophole, etc. One this that stood out to me though, was a ban on online sales of firearms, ammunition, "kits", and gun parts. By "kits" I'm assuming they mean parts kits or Polymer80 kits. This puts unnecessary restrictions on things that aren't even firearms. A ban on gun parts inhibits the average persons' ability to do any sort of repair or maintenance to their firearms. The online purchasing of firearms is even more ridiculous to me. I think that people assume that because firearms are listed for sale online, that they can just be shipped to your doorstep. We already have laws in place that require firearms to be shipped through an FFL, where a background check is performed. The lack of insight into law that are already on the books makes reading these policy points that much more frustrating.

Beyond this, there are other proposals that I'm not even sure what the plan would be for enforcement. One of these is the requirement for owners to store weapons "safely" in their homes. Short of police inspectors coming in the the house to check, this idea doesn't seem to carry weight.

Another point is stopping "Ghost guns". This point wrecks of a lack of education on the subject. I trust Joe Biden's thoughts on 3D printed firearms as much as I trust his knowledge of who the Prime Minister of the UK is. The government cannot stop content as heinous as child pornography from being distributed on the internet, I find it hard to believe that files for 3D printable firearms will go away any time soon, especially when they're so readily available right now.

Conclusion:

I find it incredibly frustrating when politicians on the left or the right seek to regulate already legal things without understanding how they work. AR15's and other "assault weapons" are in common use by US citizens. These firearms have defensive and sporting purposes. Politicians like to say that "you don't need 30 rounds to hunt" or "you can buy a shot gun" but these miss the point of the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with the ability of a US citizen to hunt. It has everything to do with a US citizen having the right to take up arms in defense of themselves and their community against a hostile actor. 

In my opinion, Joe Biden is acting as an avenue for people with political ideas and aspirations to get something done. Progressive policies are tacked onto his campaign to draw in voters to create a bloc against Trump. I see this firearm policy as being a serious detriment to him. It already presented itself as a detriment before, with Biden getting into a verbal altercation with a Union auto worker in which Biden said they are only going after his "AR-14".

This election cycle has had no shortage of political platitudes, and I'm curious to see how Biden tries to turn Trump voters to his side, especially with policies as restrictive as these.