Beto's now famous (or infamous depending on your side of the aisle) quote "Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47" has brought up questions about the legality of his claim.
Gun control has been a staple of Beto's campaign, he even sells shirts with that quote on them. His most talked about proposal is for a mandatory buyback of all assault weapons, which lead him to confrontation with President Trump, the NRA, and even members of his own party who worried he would alienate moderate democrats. The buyback money would come from increasing taxes on gun manufacturers and people who refused to sell their weapons back would be fined (possibly worse) (source).
The most popular and successful tactic of gun activists is pushing the narrative that if the democrats get even an inch in the gun control debate they'll take away everyone's guns. This fear-mongering lead to an increase in gun purchases immediately after Obama won both times, and was a key point used against Hillary Clinton. This is why passing things that most Americans support like background checks has been so difficult (source).
And now Beto is promising to do the very thing Republicans warned voters that Democrats wanted to do all along. He's coming for your guns.
Personally, I do believe that assault rifles should be banned, and I agree with Beto's sentiments of "keep that shit on the battlefield." That said, Beto is now defending police going door to door to take something that is arguably a citizens right to own. The second amendment does clearly state people have the right to "keep and bear arms," and that right "shall not be infringed." It is arguable that we need laws and regulations but what Beto is proposing violates the second amendment.
I think you can regulate who gets guns and how many are produced, but I don't think Beto's policy can ever be passed. It will be very easy for the NRA to argue that once he bans assault rifles there's nothing to stop him from trying to ban all guns. After all, if police can take one weapon, why can't they take them all? They'll have an easy time fear mongering about his policy, and this might even lead to minor measures like background checks also failing to pass.
I think that you have a very interesting article about how to best keep a moderate tone on the gun control policy in order to effectively pass small amounts of legislation at a time in order to pass tighter background checks and other measures to limit the amount of people with guns. However, there are precedents of buybacks being extremely successful, most notably Australia, where a mandatory buyback of guns destroyed about 20% of privately owned firearms and resulted in a 42% lower rate of firearm homicide rates. (https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback). Amendments can be overturned too, as Prohibition was, in the 18th and 21st Amendment. Overall, I think that while some of the stuff Beto says is not completely implausible, it is also better to stick to more moderate measures on gun control and achieving bipartisan policies that aim to save lives above all.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this post! You take a very compromising stance on this, and I like that you pointed out that the thing that many republicans fear is a reality: there are radical democrats who want to ban all guns and take them away from the people, despite the right these people have to their guns. I think that the world would always be a little better if guns were not as prevalent as they are, but I also know that we cannot go full stop and take them away from everyone, because in the end, the only thing that is really going to get us somewhere is compromise.
ReplyDeleteThis post was a really interesting way to look at gun control. I have already written a lot on gun control so this comment is a little different. Anyways, when you said "This fear-mongering lead to an increase in gun purchases immediately after Obama won both times" I immediately thought of how everyone rushed to get IUDs once Trump became president. So, this comment can be about how the public reacts to a new president. Like how many people got guns when Obama became president, lots of women got IUDs once Trump was president. I remember seeing a lot of articles in the newspapers and just online during a certain time period about all the women rushing for birth control. Both times, the public was scared that the president would take something that they cared about away from them. I think this could be a very interesting topic for a post if anyone wants to take it.
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ReplyDeleteI agree in that you can in fact regulate who gets guns but Beto's policy is a little extreme. In a country where guns are as prevalent as they are, it's hard to see many Americans wanting to give up (in some cases) their only form of defense. There will be some people who will do anything to continue owning their firearms. I'm sure there are states that would turn into war zones if police start knocking at their doors to confiscate their defense/form of enjoyment. There was an article I read in which gun owners played around the buyback system giving away old non-assault rifle weapons. And touching on the whole 'people rushing to buy more guns', well I'm sure the same will happen if Beto ever comes to running. Which would make achieving his policy a little harder? Maybe he should tone it down a bit and push out bigger regulations rather than taking guns completely away.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/12/gun-buybacks-popular-but-ineffective/1829165/