In the aftermath of tragic mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, there's been a renewed round of discussion about gun control. With Democrats in control of Washington, this issue is sure to rise to the forefront in Congress. There is talk about banning assault rifles, but what does the data actually reveal about how those guns are used and how laws regarding their sale and use could be reformed? Edwin Walker is an attorney with US Law Shield and he joined Newell Friday morning to discuss.
“This comes up every time that we have a mass shooting,” Newell began. “Now they're saying that folks are immoral if they're not in favor of banning assault type weapons... but have we really defined what an assault rifle is?”
“There's several pieces of legislation in the US Congress that define assault weapons, and I'm going to get to that in a sec,” Walker said. “There's been several bills since the original assault weapon ban expired in 2004. There's been several attempts to reintroduce it. They've redefined the word ‘assault weapon’ from the way it was originally defined, and the thing about it is, it really is a misnomer... I just want to throw this out here for your listeners, the letters AR in AR-15 stands for armalite rifle. It does not stand for assault rifle. Assault weapon was originally a term that was developed in World War II. It means automatic fire, basically a machine gun. It was first applied to the more popular German military machine gun, so that is what it means. The US civilian population does not have assault rifles. It does not have assault weapons because specifically, an assault rifle is a rifle that shoots more than one round with a single pull of a trigger, which in American law that's called the machine gun.
“Machine guns are highly regulated and have been since 1934,” Walker continued. “The anti-gun folks can define it any way they want. I mean, Congress could pass a law that says that a domestic animal with four legs and a tail and ears as a dog, but does that automatically make your cat a dog? It doesn't. So the way they've defined it is a semi-automatic rifle - it could be a rifle pistol, or a shotgun, but specific to rifles, it’s a semi-automatic rifle that accepts a magazine. Okay. So it's got a detachable magazine, it's an automatic and has a single feature, a single cosmetic feature that is either a collapsible stock, a pistol grip, a barrel shroud or threaded barrel. If it's got one of those, just one, it is considered to be an assault rifle. So for all your gun owners, go look at your gun cabinet. And if you have a semi-automatic rifle that's fed by a detachable magazine that has a collapsible stock or a barrel shroud, or a pistol grip, or a threaded barrel, it's an assault weapon!”
“I hunted with a Browning 308 with a clip forever,” Newell said. “I guess that would qualify as an assault rifle now?”
“If it had a threaded barrel, then yes, you're absolutely a hundred percent correct,” Walker said. “It is an assault weapon under the way they defined it. Now, an assault pistol, which would also be banned under all the proposed federal legislation, is any magazine fed semi-automatic pistol that either accepts a magazine outside of its pistol grip, or again, has a threaded barrel or weighs more than three pounds when loaded. And this is the biggie. I think the Glock is the handgun that is most popular currently in the United States. A lot of people own them, police officers love to use Glocks. But guess what? There's a model Glock called a Glock 18, and the Glock 18 looks exactly like every other Glock except for one feature - a Glock 18 is a fully automatic pistol. So now under the definition of assault pistol, every single Glock is now an assault pistol!”
Hear the entire interview in the audio player below.
