- cross-posted to:
- conservative
- cross-posted to:
- conservative
California cannot ban gun owners from having detachable magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, a federal judge ruled Friday.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez won’t take effect immediately. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, has already filed a notice to appeal the ruling. The ban is likely to remain in effect while the case is still pending.
This is the second time Benitez has struck down California’s law banning certain types of magazines. The first time he struck it down — way back in 2017 — an appeals court ended up reversing his decision.
So a continuation of the pattern of when minutes count, help is only hours away commonly highlighted of law enforcement and related bureaucracy?
I disagree. Implementing actions by hope alone is not likely to be ineffective and, even considering the possibility of the incredibly rare sunset provision, would unavoidably be infringements without sufficient justification.
We’ve already done much to understand these problems outside the scope of partisan posturing. The current issue is neither party is willing to change their position even the slightest.
Consider, for example, the items highlighted by the previous article. Blue team has addressed zero of the items aside from the last-ditch firearm measures. There’s so much potential for improvement here it’s hard to fathom. Some of these measures are unavoidably infringements; they’re at least supported by data and analysis.
Blue team has the unique opportunity to completely turn firearms messaging against Red team, should they actually care about these issues. They can come to the table asking for these measures which actually address underlying issues and, rather than quibbling about pushback and giving up, offer compromise - that they’re so absolutely confident in these measures, they’re willing to admit there’s no point to the NFA provisions restricting suppressors/SBRs/SBSs and no data justifying it; these measures are so effective in actually solving root issues they’re willing to allow more firearms - deregulating select fire, with some sort of equitable shall-issue process. But, the restrictions come with sunset provisions - if the comprehensive solution doesn’t meaningfully impact things, the restrictions, the added safety nets, etc. all go away.
Blue team suddenly becomes the only party in a decade actually promoting firearm enthusiast interests, turning that voting bloc neutral/blue. They absolutely will want these and will pressure and select representatives accordingly. Blue team also manages to pass the first significant gun control reform, social safety net expansion, community resource expansion, etc. in decades in a massive win with their supporters. Red team has nothing to lose as the sunset provision provides ample safety net for rolling things back. Everyone gets most of what they actually want and we manage to actually improve lives.
Naturally, this also entirely defangs a potent inflammatory wedge issue both parties depend on while reducing the desperation they depend on, so it’ll never happen.
Heh. Pretty much nailed it.
The only real problem is that so much of gun violence comes down to societal problems that are not quickly solved, and both sides have an interest in not solving. For instance, cramming a lot of poor people into a small geographic area (e.g., inner cities) results in violence. To fix the underlying problem, you’d need to eliminate poverty and economic inequality. “But that’s communism!” is what one side is going to say, even though it would have a marked effect on the reduction of violence and crime across the board.
To be fair though, even in areas where Blue Team has an absolute supermajority, they still don’t address the underlying issues. So I don’t think that it’s reasonable to say that Team Blue wants to help people, and Team Red doesn’t; Team Blue says they do, and then don’t, while Team Red doesn’t care, and does nothing.
Violence isn’t a simple problem. Taking the tools of violence doesn’t solve the underlying issues that cause violence.