In what might be the most anti-gun Op-Ed I’ve read in a long while, a columnist for Bloomberg.com’s recent screed on the AR-15 uses both half-truths and long-proven lies to paint a picture of America’s favorite rifle being the cause of nearly all the world’s evils.
Opinion Columnist and Harvard law professor Noah Feldman’s piece of utter trash journalism is behind a paywall, and I would suggest that you not waste your money on it. In fact, I did just so you wouldn’t have to.
The column starts with a whopper of a headline that Feldman apparently believes is now the “truth” since one federal court has declared it so. “AR-15s Are Weapons Of War. A Federal Judge Just Confirmed It,” the headline screams.
The subhead then doubles down on stupid: “The rifle that might have killed Donald Trump and was used to murder children in Uvalde has nothing to do with self-defense.”
While the author might believe these things to be true, just because the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that way doesn’t make it so. In fact, plenty of other courts have ruled just the opposite. That doesn’t, however, stop Feldman from building on the faulty premise of Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III’s written opinion and spouting more lies and half-truths.
Here are a few of his more egregious statements.
Bragging on the “masterful” opinion, Feldman wrote: “It lays out a roadmap for the Supreme Court to follow by explaining clearly that AR-15s are favored by terrorists and other mass shooters; that they are not suitable for self-defense; and that the framers of the Constitution would have welcomed their regulation, just as they embraced laws that protected Americans against analogous dangers.”
In truth, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation rifles of any kind were used in less than 3% of firearm murders in 2020. Like other semi-auto firearms, they shoot one round with each pull of the trigger and are not machine guns. They are far less powerful than deer rifles, and they are extremely useful for self-defense, particularly home defense, as is proven many times each year. To say they are “not suitable” for self-defense is utter foolishness—unless the author believes no guns are useful for that purpose, which could be his opinion.
Feldman continued: “The key starting point of Wilkinson’s opinion is its correct observation that when the late Justice Antonin Scalia initiated modern Second Amendment jurisprudence in the 2008 case called District of Columbia v. Heller, he based the right on personal self-defense. In truth, Scalia was pulling a historical fast one: The actual original purpose of the amendment, written into its explicit text, was to ensure that citizens could participate in well-regulated state militias.’
This is also complete B.S. While Feldman and other gun-ban advocates can continue to scream about militias, the highest court in the land has found the Second Amendment to protect an individual right in at least three different cases. Just because Feldman doesn’t believe it doesn’t mean it’s not current law.
Here’s another doozy: “Wilkinson is not making a policy point but a constitutional one: AR-15s aren’t covered by the right to bear arms because they aren’t used in self-defense.” To say that they “aren’t used in self-defense” means nobody has ever used one for that purpose. In fact, it happens frequently. It’s far easier for me to prove that they are sometimes used in self-defense than for Feldman to prove that they are never used for that purpose.
Here’s one more: “The opinion also makes short work of the idea, adopted recently by a federal district court judge in New Jersey, that AR-15s have a self-defense purpose because some people keep them at home in the belief that they could use them against intruders. Wilkinson describes why AR-15s are unsuitable for self-defense at home: Their bullets go through everything. If you tried to use an assault weapon against an intruder, you could easily kill your family and neighbors. The big magazines associated with the weapons are also not appropriate for self-defense, he adds.”
OMG. Their bullets “go through everything”? Has the judge not heard of hollow-point bullets or frangible rounds? Additionally, any gun not used carefully and safely could kill a neighbor or family member. That’s why safety is always rule number one in gun ownership. It’s clear the judge, nor the columnist, know anything about firearms.
And how can “big magazines” not be “appropriate for self-defense”? Just because a mag holds 30 rounds doesn’t mean you have to shoot them all at once. Of course, standard-capacity magazines that gun-haters want to ban are useful for any use, including self-defense. If not, people wouldn’t own them!
In the end, the opinion written in the case contains more utter B.S. than it does facts. And I have no doubt that should the case ever make its way to the Supreme Court, the justices there will agree with me, not them.
Here’s something to think about, Mr. Feldman. Just because one rogue court is going against the U.S. Supreme Court and upholding a ban on AR-15s doesn’t mean that their written opinion has any basis in fact. And in this case, it largely doesn’t.
Read the full article here
