[QUOTE=catsix]
There is nothing at all that is ‘common sense’ about this law, and no reason under the sun why it should be passed. It’s an election year puff-piece designed only to have Philadelphia liberals point at it and say ‘Look, we did something!’ and falsely paint their opponents as gun-nuts who lack common sense. It’s simplistic crap, and you don’t have to dig very deep at all to realize that it’s this bill that lacks common sense.
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This is my fundamental issue with the vast majority of gun controls; not only are they largely designed to be showpieces for politicians who want to champion how they are tough on crime that end up being impractical to implement, they also allow the same class of politicians to avoid addressing the root problems of violent crime; to wit, the socioeconomic conditions which engender gang membership, lack of economic and educational opportunity, persistent poverty, and increasing division in economic strata. A prime example of this on the federal level is the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which encompassed among other things the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, elimination of state-sponsored inmate higher education, a variety of provisions that instituted laws of dubious Constitutional merit, and the infamous campaign to hire 100,000 new police officers. The law ended up being a major kludge of amendments, special interest additions, unworkable laws, and underfunded or entirely unfunded mandates. The Assault Weapon ban, argued by supporters to ban weapons with “no sporting purpose”, did little more than prohibit cosmetic additions to rifles that were in no way functional unique from “sporting” rifles, and create an overnight market for overpriced high capacity (>10 round) magazines. No attempt was made in any part of the law to establish metrics for efficacy, and since crime rates had been falling for nearly a decade before, there was no real pressing need for the law except to address media hype about drug dealing gangs armed with full-auto AK-47, the evidence for which was apparently drawn from rap music videos otherwise having no basis in reality. (The most popular “assault weapon” for gangbangers was the Intertec Tec-9, an large, cheap, open-bolt straight blowback pistol so inaccurate and prone to feed jamming and stovepiping that it is the weapon you would prefer your opponent in a gunfight to be carrying.) Since many provisions of the law have since expired there has been no correlating increase in crime.
Another example of a good concept executed very poorly was the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993. The essential premise was to institute a background check system to assure that purchasers of weapons did not have a history of criminal activity or mental instability. Unfortunately, the bill was drafted in such a way to place an unfunded mandate on state and local authorities to perform said checks, and failed to provide a comprehensive national system to coordinate information. This was eventually challenged and negated on 10th Amendment grounds, and later superseded by the implementation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check. Curiously, the National Rifle Association–almost universally reviled by gun control advocates and the media–has supported the concept of an instant background check for decades. The NRA also contributed to and ultimately supported the National Gun Control Act of 1968 and the modifying Firearms Owner Protection Act of 1986, which restricted firearms sales and applied federal penalties for the purchase and ownership of firearms by felons, minors, et cetera. The NRA and other firearm advocacy organizations have long championed mandatory sentencing (for good or bad) regarding crimes committed with firearms.
So to answer the o.p.'s question in general form, no, not all firearm laws are opposed by the majority of firearm enthusiasts as being “anti-gun.” With regard to the particular bill in question, without reviewing the text and provisions therein its impossible to say whether it would make a good and practical law or not. The preponderance of legislators in the quorum found it, for one reason or another, to be not a good addition to the penal code and thus voted against it under the presumption that this represented the majority of opinion of their constituents. In political science terms this is called “democracy.”
Stranger