Gun Control

While mass shootings like the recent slayings at a Buffalo supermarket are typically followed with new calls for gun control, most voters believe that is not the answer, and an overwhelming majority say it’s impossible to stop the gun killings.

In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, likely voters quizzed after the May 14 shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets store that left 10 black people dead followed a pattern seen over the past several years, expressing the hopelessness of stopping the killings, often at the hands of a mentally disturbed shooter.

The problem is not sneaky entrepreneurs who sell accessories; it’s legislators who ban guns based on functionally unimportant features.

The suspect in the mass shooting that killed 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store on Saturday used a rifle that was widely described as an “assault weapon.” With certain exceptions that don’t apply here, that category of firearms is illegal in New York. Yet The New York Times reports that the shooter legally bought the rifle from a gun dealer in Endicott, New York. How is that possible?

The federal government has announced a new set of rules that will apply to non-restricted firearms, which it says is aimed at reducing gun violence, while critics say it is a resurrection of the long-gun registry.

As of May 18, firearms businesses will be required to retain sales and inventory records related to non-restricted firearms, as they did until 2005.

The measure was repealed after it was made obsolete by the creation of the long-gun registry in 1998. The long-gun registry was scrapped by the Stephen Harper government in 2012 through Bill C-19.

The long-gun registry returns starting next week.

Oh, I’m sure Trudeau Liberals will claim they are not reviving the convoluted, expensive, controversial, useless registry. After all, they swore up and down before the 2015 election they would never reinstate the registry if elected.

At least two national gun rights groups are contemplating lawsuits to challenge the new federal regulation on privately made firearms, or so-called “ghost guns.”

The final ruling, published by the ATF on Apr. 11, essentially expands the definition of a firearm to include partially complete and readily convertible firearm receivers (also called frames).

Once the ruling goes into effect, those receivers will be regulated just like regular firearms, subject to requirements such as serial numbers and background checks.

This week, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) finalized a rule tweaking a number of firearm-related regulatory definitions. The rule targets legitimate problems, including that privately made “ghost guns” have played an increasing role in gun crime lately. It also draws attention to how vague the federal laws in this area are, giving presidential administrations great discretion to rewrite the rules as they see fit.