When Patrick Henry said, “Give me Liberty or Give Me Death,” he didn’t intend for it to come with a price tag. With President Trump likely defeated in his reelection bid, the attention now focuses on his opponent Joe Biden, and his plans for America.
Projected President-Elect Biden has many ideas for America ranging from topics such as healthcare to tax reform. One of his more interesting, and quite possibly more important, positions is his gun control platform.
It is no secret that Joe Biden is in favor of gun control. His role in the passage of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which successfully banned several types of weapons shows this. In part, Projected President-Elect Biden’s plan calls for the buy-back of assault weapons and high capacity magazines in communities across America. Besides being potentially unconstitutional, his plan exemplifies the misunderstandings the American left has when it comes to gun control policy.
President-Elect Biden’s gun buy-back program is wildly unconstitutional for several reasons. Besides looking at the Second Amendment, which Justice Scalia notes in the Heller decision has restrictions, one can look at the very principles embedded in the Constitution. The 14th Amendment states that citizens cannot be deprived of “life liberty or property without due process of law.” By forcing people to sell their assault weapons back without any judicial oversight or any kind of Due Process, the government would likely be in violation of the 14th Amendment.
Besides legal challenges to his plan, the plan offers a look into how the American left views guns in America. The plan refers to many things such as “assault weapons” and “high capacity magazines,” which are not legal terms. The terms are usually in reference to fully automatic weapons (already outlawed in many states) and magazines with more than thirty rounds in them (also outlawed in some states). Although colloquially known, these terms are not legally defined and are arbitrary.
Depending on who is asked, an assault weapon can simply refer to semi-automatic rifles. Semi-automatic rifles are commonly used for hunting, and not, as it is commonly suggested by the left, murder. The facts are that, according to the Pew Research Center, about 4% of all gun murders were committed with what is considered an assault weapon. This also conflicts with another portion of the Biden Gun Platform, which includes banning the manufacturing of assault weapons.
There are no concrete definitions provided here, yet the Biden administration seems steadfast in their belief that they can get away with banning whatever guns they deem fit.
The left’s motives here are clear. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t base their platforms in fact, rather they choose to base it on what is “popular.” They can’t form a coherent position and name which guns they’d like banned and for what reasons.
By saying assault weapons, they appear to be striving to ban any rifle with semi-automatic capabilities, which is not only unconstitutional but extremely dangerous.
No politician ever lost an election by seeming too tough on crime, and, by cracking down on the “evils” of “assault weapons,” they can falsely claim to be stopping crime. This is no more than the federal government taking advantage of law-abiding everyday citizens in order to gain popular support and retain power.
Anthony Ilardi
Anthony Ilardi is a political science major at Clemson University. There he is an undergraduate senate clerk representing the undergraduate student body and a member of the mock trial team. He hopes to take his experiences in Student Government to the real world someday.
The views expressed in this article are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Lone Conservative staff.
@ailardi8
@ailardi8
