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It Will Accomplish Nothing

It Is Unconstitutional

It Will Cost Democrats Dearly In The Mid-Terms

It Will Cost A Huge Amount To Money

The proposed ban will face strong opposition from the states




It Will Accomplish Nothing

First of all, according to FBI stats, the rifles he wants to ban are almost never used in crimes. Your chances of being murdered with a so called “assault rifle” are far less than one in a million.  The FBI doesn’t break down the kind of rifle used in homicides, so AR15s and AK47s get grouped in with .22 target rifles and hunting rifles.  There is no way to know how many of the rifles he wants to ban are actually used in murders – only that about 350 people are murdered each year in the US with ANY KIND OF RIFLE.  The US population is over 360 million, hence a less than one in a million chance.

Second, there are many other ways to kill people, even lots of people.  The most common weapon used in mass shootings, and any other kind of murder, is a handgun – which SCOTUS has said may not be banned.  Second are knives, which are even harder to control.  Further down the list, but still ahead of rifles, are blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.) and bare hands and feet.  Even if we assume that everyone who wanted a so called assault weapon after the ban would not be able to get one (absurd) and that they do not simply choose another weapon (also absurd), the murder rate would likely be reduced by less than 200 per year.  In 2018, there were 16,214 homicides in the US.  A reduction of 200 per year – which is far, far higher than what the actual reduction (if any) would be – is a 1.2% drop.  Far less than the year to year variation in murders.  In other words, the benefit, if any, would be way too small to even measure.

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It Is Unconstitutional

Another huge issue: Is this Constitutional? Under the US Constitution, and a plain reading of the two recent Supreme Court rulings, the answer is a clear NO. These rulings established a “common use test” - if a firearm is in common use by civilians for lawful purposes, it cannot be banned.  All of the rifles Pres. Biden wants to ban pass the common use test and are protected by the 2nd Amendment.

Additionally, to have the slightest chance of being effective, this ban would have to include about half of the rifles in America.  If it is written like the California ban, it would leave the majority of semi-auto rifles untouched – even though they function in exactly the same way as those rifles being banned.  So all semi-auto rifles would have to be included.  In reality, pump and lever action rifles can fire nearly as fast as semi-auto rifles – so these would have to be banned too.  That would leave bolt action and single shots as the only legal rifles.  This is what has been done in other nations – but these nations do not have a 2nd Amendment.

However, the more rifles included, the stronger the constitutional case against such a ban becomes.  To have any chance of being effective, around half the rifles in America would have to be banned – but there is zero question that banning half of the rifles in America would be unconstitutional.  So, the proposed law would either be completely ineffective or clearly unconstitutional.

Additionally, a majority of states are likely to challenge such a law as violating the rights of states under both the 10th and 2nd Amendments.  The argument would be two fold.  First, the proposed law infringes upon the states right to form militias under the 2nd Amendment.  In order to be effective, militias must be armed with firearms suitable for military use – yet this proposed law prevents potential or actual militia members from owning such weapons.  Second, it violates the right of states – not the federal government - to set firearms laws under the 10th Amendment.

One thing is certain: Any such law would be tied up in the courts for years, and would be on hold during this time.

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It Will Cost Democrats Dearly In The Mid-Terms

While the law would be tied up in the courts for years, the political fallout from such a ban would be immediate.  If 1994 is a valid comparison, it will cost Democrats the House and the Senate.  Democrats have the narrowest of margins in the Senate and there are several Democratic Senators from red and purple states who are up for reelection in 2020 – when Trump will not be on the ballot.  These states are overwhelmingly pro-gun rights.  In the House, the GOP only needs to flip seven seats to gain control.  If you’re a liberal Democrat, you should therefore oppose this bill.

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It Will Cost A Huge Amount To Money – Money that Would Be More Effectively Spent Elsewhere

Let’s assume that the bill includes enough rifles to be minimally effective.  This would likely be 100 million rifles – but let’s say that half of the owners choose to keep and register them (assuming this is allowed – Biden has waffled on this).  That would be about 50 million rifles that the government would have to buy from their owners.  They would be required to pay a fair market price – which would average about $1,000.00.  So the cost of buying rifles would be about 50 billion dollars.

Then there is the issue of magazines.  Biden wants to ban and buy all magazines holding more than 10 rounds.  Let’s assume that for every one of these rifles, there are 3 magazines.  That would be 150 million magazines.  However, these are not the only magazines out there holding more than 10 rounds.  For decades, most pistol magazines have held between 13 and 18 rounds.  Some hold even more.  How many of these magazines are out there?  Well, there are at least 50 million pistols capable of using such magazines (this is likely a very low estimate).  If we estimate three magazines per handgun – a very reasonable estimate given that most ship with two, and they are readily available for purchase separately – than we are looking at a minimum of 150 pistol magazines.  Add in the rifle magazines and we are looking  at least 300 million magazines.  At an average price of only $20.00, this would cost the government 6 Billion dollars.

So, now we are at a cost of 56 Billion – but we are not done.  There are the administrative and enforcement costs.  Who know how much this would be – but it clearly would not be insignificant.  A good conservative guess, IMHO, would be 25% of the other costs.  That would be 14 Billion, which would bring the final estimate to 70 billion dollars.

The reality is that no one knows how many magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds are out there (only that they are more than half the magazines owned by Americans). We also don't know how many firearms would be included in such a ban, nor how many people would elect to keep their firearms and register them under the NFA (National Firearms Act), nor if the $200.00 registration fee would be waived.  But there is no question that Biden’s gun bill would cost TENS TO HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS.

This begs the question: If we are going to spend this much money to reduce gun violence, are there more effective ways to spend it?  Of course, the answer is yes.  Two that immediately come to mind are funding mental health professionals to respond with police and the expansion of the Secret Service threat assessment program and methods to local law enforcement.   Another possibility would be the funding of ATF agents to be embedded with local police and sheriffs, as in “Project Exile”    Both of these would have a greater effect on mass shootings – and other shootings - than gun bans.

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The proposed ban will face strong opposition from the states – up to, and possibly including, the use of force

Assuming this proposed bill passes, and that the courts do not stop it, it looks like a strong majority of states are going to passively oppose enforcement of these bans, and it is likely that some state and local authorities may actively oppose such enforcement.

The passive opposition has already begun and consists of states forbidding their law enforcement from assisting in any way in the enforcement of federal gun laws.  Four states (AK, ID, WY and KS) have already passed such laws – and many more are considering doing so. Many counties, even in blue states, are taking the same action.  This has already been litigated in regards to federal immigration laws and been found to be completely legal.  This would make enforcement of federal gun laws difficult to practically impossible.  Why? Well, the number of federal agents is simply not large enough to do the job.  Currently, ATF depends upon local law enforcement to report violations of federal gun laws.  These laws forbid this.  Additionally, ATF depends upon local sheriffs to hold their prisoners. This would also be forbidden.  This is going to make enforcement very difficult.


Passive opposition is only the beginning – some states and counties are clearly saying that they will direct their law enforcement to prevent federal agents from enforcing laws like Biden’s proposal.  Texas Governor Greg Abbot has made it clear that his proposal goes farther: “I want to make sure that Texas becomes a Second Amendment sanctuary state so that no government official at any level can come and take your gun away from you, despite those people who said, ‘Heck yes, we’re going to take your gun.  We’re gonna say, ‘Heck no, you cannot take people’s guns away in Texas."


Even without such a law, should the federal government attempt to enforce such a law in states with a strong belief that the affected guns are protected by the 2nd Amendment, it is absolutely certain that law enforcement in one of these states will move to prevent federal agents from arresting otherwise law abiding citizens who possess such weapons or seizing them.  Here in Idaho, such a confrontation nearly happened when the Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler lined up outside the Priest River, Idaho, home of veteran John Arnold to prevent the Veterans Administration (VA) from taking away his guns.  The VA backed down.  Had they not wisely done so, it is likely the sheriff would have arrested anyone trying to seize his guns, as he said as much on local TV.  Would armed federal agents have submitted to arrest?  Hopefully – but if such a law is passed, eventually such an incident will result in a firefight between local law enforcement (and perhaps citizens) and federal agents.

What will happen then?  Well, given the divided state of our nation, there is a very good chance that such an incident could touch off a civil war.  No one would win such a war.  No one should want such a war.  So why should we risk a civil war over firearms that are almost never used in murders?

I almost entitled this article, the dumbest proposal ever.  I am sure you now see why.

-Rev. R. Vincent Warde
 2-22-2021


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