Democrat Leaders Support Gun Confiscation
Not all gun control proponents prevaricate. Some are forthright about their intentions. After Sandy Hook, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) stated she was
considering legislation to institute a mandatory national buyback program. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also
expressed an interest in confiscation, at least for assault weapons. “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.” Ultimately, New York did not institute confiscation, but did require registration of existing assault weapons and banned all sales of new and existing ones within the state.
Voluntary buyback initiatives are a waste of time and money. So those hostile to gun rights continue to demand mandatory confiscation.
Gun buybacks remain a popular policy with the Left because it is the only way of achieving what the Left regards as the only acceptable gun-control solution: reducing the number of guns in America. Matt Miller of the Center for American Progress
proposed such a program after Sandy Hook. Conceding that anything mandatory was unlikely to pass Congress, he pitched a gun buyback program as a form of economic stimulus: give people cash for guns, which they can then spend on other things. “Make gun owners an offer they can’t refuse. Instead of a measly $200 a gun, Uncle Sam might offer $500.” Why a gun owner would accept $500 for a gun that likely cost considerably more is a question Miller unsurprisingly does not ask, let alone answer. Posing it would puncture his balloon.
Voluntary buyback initiatives are
a waste of time and money. So those hostile to gun rights continue to demand mandatory confiscation. Earlier this year, the advisory commission appointed by Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy after Sandy Hook
recommended banning the sale and possession of “any rifle or handgun that accepts a detachable magazine.” Commission members shrugged off suggestions that this would entail an unconstitutional prohibition on most firearms Americans own, saying it was not their job to take such niceties into account. The editorial board of the Newark
Star-Ledger displayed similar “magical thinking”
last September when it called for mandatory confiscation in New Jersey. Predictably, the board cited the Australian example, pointing to the drop in gun violence there as all the necessary justification for inaugurating such a program here. The editorial board concluded by bemoaning America’s “hysteria over ‘gun confiscation,’” which would keep their fantasy just that.
